Liontrust Responsible Capitalism Report 2024 - Flipbook - Page 114
Investment team voting statistics
Team
Total Votes cast
Votes in favour
Votes against
Withhold Votes
Abstentions
Against
Management
Against Policy
Sustainable Investment Team
2307 (97.75%)
2052 (88.95%)
159 (6.89%)
57 (2.47%)
18 (0.78%)
224 (9.71%)
50 (2.17%)
Economic Advantage Team
2277 (99.96%)
2199 (96.57%)
57 (2.50%)
20 (0.88%)
0 (0%)
74 (3.25%)
32 (1.41%)
Multi-Asset Team
474 (97.33%)
449 (94.73%)
22 (4.64%)
3 (0.63%)
0 (0%)
25 (5.27%)
6 (1.27%)
Global Fundamental Team
5029 (99.29%)
4589 (91.25%)
363 (7.22%)
26 (0.52%)
59 (1.75%)
411 (8.17%)
37 (0.74%)
Cashflow Solution Team
1407 (100%)
1204 (85.57%)
143 (10.16%)
58 (4.12%)
0 (0%)
176 (12.51%)
1 (0.07%)
Global Innovation Team
1092 (94.63%)
806 (73.81%)
176 (16.12%)
23 (2.11%)
51 (4.67%)
234 (21.43%)
17 (1.56%)
Notes on information and statistics
• In 2023, Liontrust voted at 97.94% (1000 of 1021) of votable
meetings. This amounts to 98.07%
(12,265 of 12,507) of
votable proposals. Additionally, 55.34% of meetings saw one or
more votes against management. Delta ( ) represents KPMG’s
independent limited assurance over certain proxy voting metrics
of 2022 data under ISAE (UK) 3000 and ISAE3410. The limited
assurance opinion provided by KPMG can be found on page
132
• There are instances in which different investment teams at Liontrust
hold votable shares with a company. If these teams apply different
investment policies, this may result in the investment teams voting
differently from each other on a particular resolution. In these
situations, the individual unique vote for the resolution is counted
once under each of the voting outcomes. The resolution itself is
counted once as an eligible resolution. This results in the sum
of the percentage of meeting resolutions/proposals voted For,
Against, Abstain and Withheld being over 100%.
• Information and statistics used are generated from Liontrust’s proxy
voting platform, ISS. Due to the way in which the ISS templated
Vote Summary and Board Statistics reports are run on the ISS
Proxy Exchange platform, meetings across all account groups are
extracted, meaning that discrepancies in totals may arise. These
reports count unique votes separately and non-unique votes as
one, whereas the ballot extraction shows all ballots even if they
are voting the same way, resulting in the number of total votes
instructed to be higher than the number of voteable proposals.
• Note: Instructions of Do Not Vote are not considered voted;
Frequency on Pay votes of one, two or three years are only
reflected statistically, where applicable, but present in the
underlying detail; and in cases of different votes submitted across
ballots for a given meeting, votes cast are distinctly counted by
type per proposal where total votes submitted may be higher
than unique proposals voted.
SHAREHOLDER FILED PROPOSALS
Liontrust’s investment teams understand that shareholder resolutions
may encompass a wide range of issues. The investment teams (or
the Responsible Capitalism Team on their behalf) assess shareholder
proposals on a case-by-case basis, considering their materiality
and relevance to any investment concerns. The investment teams
will consider supporting non-binding shareholder resolutions if the
broad purpose of the proposal is aligned with Liontrust’s voting
policy or addresses potential improvements for the investee
company. For binding resolutions, Liontrust’s investment teams prefer
that a proposal is proportionate, in shareholder interests, focused
on improving the reputation and quality of a company’s operations
and practices, and aligned with Liontrust’s policy.
have already actioned what the proponent was requesting. To put
this into context, Liontrust’s investment teams supported 56% of the
67 proposals presented in ShareAction’s 2023 Voting Matters
report that they were eligible to vote at.
When a company receives a shareholder proposal related to an
environmental and/or social issue, Liontrust’s investment teams will
consider the robustness of the company’s existing disclosures and
consider how the company is currently managing the related issue(s)
in determining how to vote. Vote instructions may be determined on
a case-by-case basis.
In 2023, the investment teams did not support certain proposals
for a variety of reasons. Shareholder proposals may have been
regarded as being too didactic or arbitrary, divergent from existing
company strategy, or at times unnecessary, as the company may
114 - Responsible Capitalism Report 2023
CONVERSATIONS WITH ISS
Throughout 2023, the Responsible Capitalism team engaged
regularly with ISS. The Group found ISS to be highly responsive and
also constructive in its approach to resolving problems. The matters
the Group engaged ISS on were varied. These included day-today operational matters such as queries regarding the content of
and timely publishing of research recommendations, liaising with
custodians to ensure amended instructions were processed, and
account and policy administration and consolidation.
At the end of proxy season, Liontrust participated in ISS’s review. The
Group fed back, highlighting concerns, such as that ISS’ research
guidelines for large cap companies are also the ones applied to UK
small cap issuers. The Group also felt it would be helpful to receive
ISS’s research updates earlier in advance of the voting deadline.
ISS took these comments on board. ISS also provided Liontrust with
training on reporting features available in the ISS platform. ISS
has kept Liontrust up to date with proxy voting related regulatory
changes and requirements and industry best practice.