On this page you can search our voting activity for all company meetings in relation to which we received a portfolio’s ballots and had the opportunity to exercise the underlying voting rights. Rationale is provided where we voted against the recommendations of management. Please note that the voting data does not include client-specific portfolios managed on a segregated basis. Not all strategies are available in all jurisdictions. Data covers stewardship activities in relation to investments of Newton Investment Management Limited, Newton Investment Management North America LLC and Newton Investment Management Japan (together, ‘Newton’). Please see the ‘Important information’ below the dashboard for further details on our approach to voting.
Important information
Newton seeks to exercise voting rights in all markets, and the decisions taken are on a case-by-case basis. This ensures that a company’s individual circumstances and the nature of the voting item are taken into account, together with relevant governing laws, guidelines and established best practices.
Fundamentally, voting decisions aim to support our investment expectations and also reflect any engagement activities undertaken. We employ a variety of research providers that aid us in the vote decision-making process, including proxy advisors such as ISS. We use ISS for the purpose of administering proxy voting, as well as its research reports on individual company meetings. Only in the event where we recognise a potential material conflict of interest do we routinely follow the voting recommendations of ISS.
Our ability to exercise voting rights may be hindered by practical considerations. For instance, in certain markets, shares are ‘blocked’ before the exercise of voting rights. Blocking consists of placing the stock on a register for a number of days spanning the meeting. During the share-blocked period, the shares cannot be traded freely. In markets where share blocking is practised, we will vote only when the resolution is not in shareholders’ best interests and where restricting the ability to trade does not risk adversely affecting the value of clients’ holdings.
We may also opt out of exercising voting rights if the entity or persons related to the entity are subject to economic sanctions.
As would be expected owing to the nature of the underlying investments, a majority of voting activity takes place for equity and multi-asset portfolios, which invest in listed equities that are, generally, required to hold annual shareholder meetings. For fixed-income investments, there are few instances of proxy voting being undertaken owing to these securities not carrying the same ownership rights as equity securities.
The overarching principles that guide the ultimate voting decisions made are described in our Governance Principles and Voting Guidelines.