Liontrust engagement and voting report 2021 - Flipbook - Page 11
Diversity
In 2021, Liontrust focused on encouraging companies to increase their
gender diversity. We engaged through (virtual) meetings with eight
companies1 to request an increase in the gender diversity of their boards
and emailed 18 companies with no female directors to ascertain their
ambitions to improve their gender diversity.
Many of the companies with no female board members are
based in emerging markets but we were encouraged by many of
their responses. It may be that some of the outcomes from these
engagements will take time to be actioned.
In 2022, we will continue our efforts on gender diversity while
extending them to include board-level ethnic diversity.
Our Global Fixed Income team also engaged with its investee
companies that do not disclose their board compositions to request
an overview and encourage them to boost their gender diversity. This
is a particular challenge in the private company space, where it is
not incumbent on companies to disclose the details of their boards.
Outcomes
Instem – Liontrust met with its CEO following previous votes
against the company due to a lack of board independence. We
encouraged Instem to disclose its plans to recruit a new independent
non-executive director (NED), which it did. The company has
subsequently announced the addition of a new independent NED
who adds new skillsets to the board and is from an ethnicallydiverse background.
This does not include the Sustainable Investment team as its
engagements on diversity extend to ethnic (as well as gender)
diversity and has been a longstanding area of focus.
1
See the voting section of this report for information on the Sustainable
Investment team’s progress on diversity through voting.
Liontrust: Engagement and Voting Report 2021 - 11