Corporate Engagement


Corporate engagement is an important tool to evaluate whether the companies we invest in are appropriately managing relevant environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. Due to the global nature of our portfolios, we endeavor to engage across geographies, sectors and market caps.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Factors

We believe investors who prioritize responsible investment are best served by an investment process that considers both top-down and bottom-up factors.

Integrating ESG analysis at the country, sector and stock levels consistent with clients’ investment goals and ESG policies maximizes the likelihood of achieving desired performance and improving environmental and social conditions worldwide.

We conduct corporate engagement efforts as part of our fundamental analysis and to clarify or express concerns regarding ESG topics.

FI holds meetings with company management as necessary to discuss issues FI feels are pertinent to analyzing the company or better understanding peers or relevant industry factors.

What we learn from these conversations is incorporated into our fundamental analysis. Our engagement policy describes how we identify and prioritize engagement opportunities, our approach to collaborative engagements, and how we manage conflicts of interest.

Areas of Engagement

We prioritize multiple factors in each ESG category:

Environmental

  • Climate Change
  • Pollution & Toxic Waste
  • Water Stewardship
  • Biodiversity
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Social

  • Human Rights
  • Human Capital
  • Labor Relations
  • Community Impact

Governance

  • Executive Compensation
  • Board Independence
  • Board Diversity
  • Proxy Voting

We identify many of our engagement opportunities through a combination of top-down quantitative and qualitative information to generate focus lists. We further vet the lists based on bottom-up company research, which includes:

  • Company Financials
  • Sustainability Disclosures
  • Analysis From Our ESG Research Providers
  • Research From Responsible Investment Network Partners
  • Relevant NGO Reports

Thorough, Ongoing Review

In addition to our primary engagement sources, we monitor our holdings on an ongoing basis and consider engaging with management whenever ESG concerns arise related to a company’s business. We engage companies that are domiciled around the world. Nearly all of our engagement opportunities are generated from five sources:

  • Client ESG priorities

  • Proprietary top-down assessment of relevant ESG issues

  • Ongoing portfolio management

  • Proxy voting activities

  • Collaborative engagement initiatives

Quarterly Engagement Reports

Quarterly corporate engagement reports detail the number of engagements with companies in which we invest, their sector, a summary of events, and conclusions to provide insight, transparency, and clarity to the ESG vetting process.

View the available reports:

Proxy Voting: Differentiated Approach

We exercise our proxy voting rights and responsibilities with the assistance of an independent, third-party voting service. Our voting guidelines incorporate geographical variances because of differences in local norms of good governance, regional/local regulatory differences and listing requirements. In addition, institutional guidelines may be structured in accordance with custom sustainable investing standards, which are then communicated to our voting service by our back-office professionals.

To provide transparency about our stewardship activities, we post quarterly engagement and proxy voting reports to our website, which include metrics and detailed engagement examples.

Previous fiscal quarters’ proxy voting reports can be viewed below.

EU/EEA Equities Shareholder Engagement Policy

In accordance with our shareholder engagement policy, please review the proxy voting reports provided on this page for the annual disclosure on how such policy have been implemented for the previous year.

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