UKSIF response: Vote Reporting: A consultation and discussion paper from the Vote Reporting Group
UKSIF welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Vote Reporting Group’s consultation on initial proposals for standardised and comparable vote reporting disclosures by UK asset managers, and we were pleased to contribute to this important work as a representative member of the Group. We are supportive of the Vote Reporting Group’s core objectives and many of the proposals outlined in the consultation on the draft vote reporting template produced by the Group and central registry to host vote reporting.
We recommend the FCA take forward the Group’s proposals in the coming months with a view to publishing a formal consultation in the first half of next year for input from industry stakeholders, outlining further details on how a vote reporting regime could operate in future in the UK. The consultation should consider how the UK’s regime would interact with and complement existing industry-led and regulatory initiatives on voting and stewardship such as the UK Stewardship Code, particularly in light of the Code’s upcoming review planned for later this year.
Broadly, we see considerable value for both asset owner clients and asset managers in the UK in introducing a new vote reporting regime that can facilitate a greater degree of standardisation and consistency across managers’ vote disclosures, which would bring a number of important benefits. These benefits include: enhancing the value and timeliness of voting across the UK’s investment industry and investment chain; promoting transparency in the market over voting behaviour and more effective investor scrutiny in holding investee companies to account on a range of issues; improving clients’ oversight and input into their managers’ and their own voting and engagement policies; facilitating more effective interactions between asset owners and managers, and helping align the expectations of both these groups.
One proposals have been taken forward and finalised by the FCA in due course following its consultation, we would advise the regulator to consider an initial piloting of the vote reporting template with firms ahead of the introduction of a mandatory regime being established in the UK, which we would support.
UKSIF’s response is informed by our membership, though this does not necessarily reflect the views and perspectives of our entire membership, either individually or collectively.
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