Tag Archives: Proxy Access

Breaking News: $12 Trillion in Professionally Managed Sustainable Investment Assets — $1-in-$4 of Total U.S. Assets

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by Hank Boerner – Chair and Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

Call it “sustainable and responsible investing” or “SRI” or “ESG investing” or “impact investing” – whatever your preferred nomenclature, “sustainable investing” in the U.S.A. is making great strides as demonstrated in a new report from US SIF.

The benchmark report issued today – “The Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends 2018” – by the U.S. Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF) puts things in perspective for investors and corporate managers:

  • At the beginning of 2018, the institutional owners and asset management firms surveyed reported total sustainable investment at US$12 trillion AUM – that is 26% of the total assets under professional management in the U.S.A. — $1-in-$4 of all investable assets!
  • That’s an increase of 38% since the last US SIF report at the start of 2016. The AUM of sustainable investments then was $8.72 trillion. That was $1-in-$5.
  • And that was an increase of 33% since the survey of owners and managers at the start of 2014.
  • Sustainable investing jumped following the 2008 financial crisis, with growth of 240% from 2012 to 2014.

The US SIF bi-annual survey of investors began in 1995, when the total of sustainable investments professionally managed was pegged at $639 billion. There has been an 18-fold increase in sustainable investing assets since then – at a compound rate of 13.6% over the years since that pioneering research was done.

The researchers queried these institutions in 2018:

  • 496 institutional owners (fiduciaries such as public employee pension funds and labor funds – these represented the component of the survey results at $5.6 trillion in ESG assets**).
  • 365 asset/money managers working for institutional and retail owners;
    private equity firms, hedge fund managers, VC funds, REITS, property funds;
    alternative investment or uncategorized money manager assets);
  • 1,145 community investing institutions (such as CDFIs).

What is “sustainable investing”?  There are these approaches adopted by sustainable investors:

  • Negative/exclusionary screening (out) certain assets (tobacco, weapons, gaming);
  • Positive/selection of best-in-class considering ESG performance (peer groups, industry, sector, activities);
  • ESG integration, considering risks and opportunities, ESG assets and liabilities);
    Impact investing (having explicit intention to generate positive social and environmental impact along with financial return);
  • Sustainability-themed products.

The top ESG issues for institutional investors in 2018 included:

  • Conflict Risk (terror attacks, repressive regimes) – $2.97 trillion impact;
  • Tobacco related restrictions – $2.56 trillion
  • Climate Change / Carbon-related issues – $2.24 trillion
  • Board Room issues – $1.73 trillion
  • Executive Pay – $1.69 trillion

Asset managers identified these issues as among the most important of rising concerns:

  • Climate change and Carbon
  • Conflict risk

Prominent concerns for asset owners included:

  • Transparency and Corruption
  • Civilian firearms / weapons
  • a range of diversity and equal employment opportunity issues.

The Proxy Voting Arena

The shareowners and asset managers surveyed regularly engage with corporate executives to express their concerns and advocate for change in corporate strategies, practices and behaviors through presentation of resolutions for the entire shareholder base to vote on in the annual corporate elections.

From 2016 to 2018 proxy seasons these resolutions were focused on:

  • Proxy access for shareowners (business associations have been lobbying to restrict such access by qualified shareowners).
  • Corporate Political Activity (political contributions, lobbying direct expenses and expenses for indirect lobbying by business groups with allocated corporate contributions).
  • A range of environmental and climate change issues.
  • Labor issues / equal employment opportunity.
  • Executive compensation.
  • Human Rights.
  • Call for independent board chair.
  • Board Diversity.
  • Call for sustainability reporting by the company.

Public employee pension systems/funds led the campaigns with 71% of the resolutions filed in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Labor funds accounted for 13% of filings.

Asset/money management firms accounted for 11.5%.

A total of 165 institutional owners and 54 asset managers filed or co-filed resolutions on ESG issues at the beginning of the 2018 proxy voting season.

The ESG Checklist

The institutions and asset managers queried could answer queries that addressed these ESG, community, product factors in describing their investment analysis, decision-making and portfolio construction activities. This is a good checklist for you when discussing ESG issues and topics with colleagues:

The “E” – Environmental:

  • Clean technology
  • Climate change / carbon (including GhG emissions)
  • Fossil fuel company divestment from portfolio, or exclusion
  • Green building / smart growth solutions
  • Pollution / toxics
  • Sustainable Natural Resources / Agriculture
  • Other E issues

The “S” – Social (or “societal”):

  • Conflict risk (repressive regimes, state sponsors of terrorism)
  • Equal employment opportunity (EEO) / diversity
  • Gender lens (women’s socio-economic progress)
  • Human rights
  • Labor issues
  • Prison-related issues (for-profit prison operators)
  • Other S issues

The “G” – Corporate Governance:

  • Board-related issues (independence, pay, diversity, response to shareowners)
  • Executive pay
  • Political contributions (lobbying, corporate political spending)
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policies

Product / Industry Criteria:

  • Alcohol
  • Animal testing and welfare
  • Faith-based criteria
  • Military / weapons
  • Gambling
  • Nuclear
  • Pornography
  • Product safety
  • Tobacco

Community Criteria:

  • Affordable housing
  • Community relations / philanthropy
  • Community services
  • Fair consumer lending
  • Microenterprise credit
  • Place-based investing
  • Small and medium business credit

The report was funded by the US SIF Foundation to advance the mission of US SIF.

The mission: rapidly shift investment practices towards sustainability, focusing on long-term investment and the generation of positive social and environmental impacts. Both the foundation and US SIF seek to ensure that E, S and G impacts are meaningfully assessed in all investment decisions to result in a more sustainable and equitable society.

The bold name asset owners and asset managers and related firms that are members of US SIF include Bank of America, AFL-CIO Office of Investment, MSCI, Morgan Stanley, TIAA-CREF, BlackRock, UBS Global Asset Management, Rockefeller & Co, Bloomberg, ISS, and Morningstar.

Prominent ESG / sustainable investment players include Walden Asset Management, Boston Common Asset Management, Clearbridge, Cornerstone Capital, Neuberger Berman, As You Sow, Trillium Asset Management, Calvert Investments (a unit of Eaton Vance), Domini Impact Investments, Just Money Advisors, and many others.

The complete list is here: https://www.ussif.org/institutions

Information about the 2018 report is here: https://www.ussif.org/blog_home.asp?display=118

About the US SIF Report:  The report project was coordinated by Meg Voorhees, Director of Research, and Joshua Humphreys, Croatan Institute.  Lisa Woll is CEO of US SIF.  The report was released at Bloomberg LP HQs in New York City; the host was Curtis Ravenel, Global Head of Sustainable Business & Finance at Bloomberg. q1

Governance & Accountability Institute is a long-time member. EVP Louis D. Coppola is the Chair of the US SIF Company Calls Committee (CCC) which serves as a resource to companies by providing a point of contact into the sustainable investment analyst community

** Institutional owners include public employee retirement funds, labor funds, insurance companies, educational institutions, foundations, healthcare organizations, faith-based institutions, not-for-profits, and family offices.

Pension Fund Activists Focus on Climate Change, Diversity, Director Nomination Process — with New York City Funds in the Lead

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by Hank Boerner– Chairman, G&A Institute

Leading and influential activists in the sustainable & responsible investment community are focusing on the filing of their 2015 corporate proxy ballots with ESG issues top-of-mind. Let’s take a look at the actions of the New York City (5) pension funds (with US$160 billion in Assets Under Management).

The city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, was elected in November 2013, along with the new high-visibility mayor (Bill DeBlasio).  Under Comptroller Stringer’s direction, the fund(s) are filing proxy proposals with 75 companies to demand a greater voice in the nomination of boards of directors.  This is the characterized as “giving shareowners a true voice in how boards are elected.” .

This campaign is designed to roll out proxy access demands across the broad public company universe in the United States.  Back in the 1800s, one of the corrupt big city political bosses was William M. “Boss” Tweed.  Said Comptroller Stringer:  “The current ]corporate] election procedures would make Boss Tweed blush. We are seeing to change the market by having more meaningful director elections through proxy access, which will make boards more responsive to shareowners.  We expect to see better long-term performance across our portfolio…”

(As local point of reference, Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall was a member of Congress and director of the Erie Railroad Company and 10th National Bank.  He was convicted of corruption and died in jail in 1878.  His name is synonymous with corruption, cronyism, political back slapping.)

The NYC comptroller serves as investment advisor to, and custodian and trustee of the 5 funds, which are for city employee beneficiaries — teachers, police, fire department, board of education, city employees.

“Proxy access” is the ability for owners to nominate directors in addition to — or in opposition to — the company’s slate of directors (in the proxy statement).  Comptroller Stringer wants to give shareholders with (1) 3% of shares and (2) holding the shares for 3 years the “threshold” of being able to nominate candidates for board service, up to (3) 25% of the total board membership.  Those companies not agreeing to the proposal received the NYC fund ballot initiative.

And big corporate names are involved; the resolutions are being filed at:

  • 33 carbon intensive coal, oil & gas, and utility companies (such as Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Apache, AEP (power), Southwestern Energy, ConocoPhilipps, Peabody Energy);
  • 24 companies with few / or no women on the board, and “little or no” racial or ethnic diversity – including eBay, Priceline, Level 3 Communications, Urban Outfitters, Alexion Pharma;
  • 25 companies that received “significant” opposition to 2014 shareholder votes (advisory, not binding) on their executive compensation plans.

In focus: :”Zombie directors”  – of 41 corporate directors receiving less than a majority vote in 2013, 40 remain on their boards.  As Comptroller Stringer described them, “unelected, but still serving…

“This is all part of what the pension fund leaders call their “Boardroom Accountability Project,” designed to call attention to as boards of directors and their perceived failure to address critical issues — climate risk, excessive compensation and lack of diversity in the board room.

Note that under “”plurality” voting in un-contested elections, a director who receives just one vote (his or hers counts if shares are owned) is re-elected…even if every other vote is cast against him.  The project seeks to have companies amend their bylaws to change that situation.

New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli was re-elected by an overwhelming statewide majority in November; he enthusiastically endorsed the city funds’ project (he is the sole trustee of the US$180 billion New York State Common Fund). He described the Board Accountability Project as a wake-up call to boards of directors to change the way business in the board room is done.

Also in support:  Anne Stausboll, CEO for California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) — the nation’s largest public employee pension fund with US$ 300 billion in AUM.

Her colleague, Anne Sheehan, corporate governance director at the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) termed the board accountability project “long overdue for our country,” voicing her support.  The fund has US$186 billion AUM.

This is not just a “New York City” liberal-leaning thing — voicing support for the project were other public sector fiduciaries:

  • William R. Atwood, executive director of the Illinois State Board of Investment. (US$5 billion AUM)
  • Francis X. Bielli, executive director of the Philadelphia Board of Pensions & Retirement.   (US$4.5 billion AUM)
  • Travis Williams, chairman of the Firefighters Pension System of Kansas City, Missouri.  (US$460 million AUM)
  • Alex Fernandez, chairman of the Miami (Florida) Firefighters Relief and Pension Fund.( US$1.5 billion AUM)

Comptroller Scott Singer explained that the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) first proposed “universal proxy access” (for all shareholders) back in 2003 as a “way to end the Imperial CEO,” as Enron, WorldCom and other large-caps imploded and many went out of business.  In 2010, the SEC approved a universal policy access rule in response to the financial crisis.” In a federal district court case, the rule was set aside; the SEC still allows “private ordering,” the ability for shareowners such as pension funds to file resolutions to be placed on the annual voting ballot.

And so the battle lines are being drawn for 2015 corporate engagements.  Many of the public companies named by New York City funds are seen as leaders in sustainability, responsibility and accountability.  The proxy resolutions would seem to state otherwise.

It will be interesting to see how the Board Accountability Project progresses, and how corporate boards and C-suites see the demands presented for greater “Corporate Democracy.”