Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) will now offer pass-through voting, via Tumelo, to its clients.
LGIM is the UK first major asset manager to offer this technology in the UK, which allows individual clients to register their own vote on company AGMs, rather than having to go with the ‘block’ vote of the asset manager.
Camden Pension fund is the first of LGIM clients to sign up to use these pass through votes, giving them a direct voice at AGM votes for all the companies they invest in through LGIM’s pooled funds.
Pass-through voting has started to be available in the US in recent years, but Tumelo says this is a “huge step” in the UK in terms of advancing shareholder democracy and improving investment stewardship.
Previously, Tumelo has worked with individual pension funds, and its technology allow members to register a preference on how they would vote on key issues, often relating to ESG issues. These can be used by asset owners and asset managers to influence voting records.
However this lates development takes this one step further, giving large asset owners the opportunity to register their own vote directly. Clients can choose to vote on any shareholder resolutions, rather than just the ones selected from a list of pre-approved policies. Judging by data from last year’s indicative voting, Camden is likely to vote differently to LGIM on human rights votes, health votes, climate change votes, CEO votes.
BlackRock also offers a number of pass through voting options to institutional clients, both in the US and the UK.