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Aviva Investors

Detailed below is a summary of the voting strategy for Aviva Investors UK Funds Services Limited (AIUKFSL). AIUKFSL has, as Authorised Corporate Director to the Funds, delegated the day to day implementation of the voting strategy to Aviva Investors Global Services Limited, River Road Asset Management LLC and Schroder Investment Management Limited as applicable.

Summary of our Voting Strategies

Aviva Investors aims to make a positive contribution to the evolution of good corporate governance by taking an active interest in the companies in which we invest and by protecting the rights of shareholders. Companies which are well governed and operate in a responsible and sustainable way should have the culture, attitude and transparent mechanisms in place to support their long-term health and shareholder value. Good corporate governance practice establishes the frameworks that facilitate the agency relationship that exists between shareholders and the management of their companies, and the voting of ownership rights is an important tool in that relationship.

Why voting is important
Voting is important because it is the ultimate sanction by which we hold companies to account for their stewardship of our companies. Corporate governance, engagement and voting form an integral and active part of Aviva Investors' approach to managing, protecting and enhancing the long-term value of the funds we invest for our clients and beneficiaries.

Summary of our approach to voting
Our Corporate Governance and Corporate Responsibility Voting Policy (“our Voting Policy”) sets out how we exercise our responsibilities in this regard, and is available publicly on our website as well as by request to our clients. Our Voting Policy is an integral part of our approach to responsible investment, in particular to our stewardship responsibilities.

Our Voting Policy covers all our funds managed in the UK, and embodies the recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code, the International Corporate Governance Network's (ICGN) Global Corporate Governance Principles, and reflects our commitment to the UN Principles of Responsible Investment (“UN PRI”) and to other national and international good practice guidelines. It is also an integral part of our compliance with Principle 6 of the UK Stewardship Code (“ Principle 6: Institutional investors should have a clear policy on voting and disclosure of voting activity”).

  1. Our voting universe/benchmark is the MSCI World Index (ie. we vote at all companies listed in this index in which we hold stock and have voting rights), but in practice we aim to vote at all shareholder meetings where we have meaningful holdings. This means that we vote at many thousands of meetings each year, including all our UK, North American, Japanese, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australian stocks, and the majority of our holdings in Europe and emerging markets.
  2. We consider resolutions on their own merits as well as in the light of appropriate policies, standards and good practice. Our voting decisions are made in light of the investment objectives and policy of the relevant scheme and of our Voting Policy.
  3. In making our voting decisions, we use governance and other research from a number of sources. We use research for data analysis only and we do not automatically follow any external voting recommendations. We believe that subscribing to a wide range of research gives us a better and more objective overview of the governance arrangements at companies and enables us to check our own assessments.
  4. If there are sufficiently material concerns, wherever possible we will engage with companies to explore or resolve issues before voting. Given the number of companies we own in our portfolios, we seek to prioritise engagement where it is most likely to benefit our clients.
  5. We take our fiduciary duties to clients and beneficiaries very seriously, and we apply a consistent and transparent approach to the management of conflicts of interest. Our principal objectives when considering matters such as engagement and voting are always to act in the interests of our clients and underlying beneficiaries, and to treat all clients and beneficiaries fairly.
  6. We publish our voting records, and these are publicly available on our website. In addition, we also provide an overall summary of our voting and engagement activities with an analysis of the issues involved. This is also available on our website.


Further Information
For further information, please see our website at http://www.avivainvestors.com/about_us/our_corporate_governance/index.htm where the following can be viewed free of charge:

Aviva Investors Corporate Governance and Corporate Responsibility Voting Policy

Aviva Investors Stewardship Policy

Our voting records summarising voting actions taken on the basis of our approach