ICSA, a steering group of industry experts – companies, investors and other key stakeholders – has launched 'Improving Engagement Practices by Companies and Institutional Investors', a consultation document on stewardship. The deadline is 30 November, 2012.
The consultation is the result of dialogues conducted by the 2020 Investor Stewardship Working Party, during which company chairmen described the shortcomings they had experienced in investor engagement. This led to the production, in March 2012, of the Working Party’s report: '2020 Stewardship – Improving the Quality of Investor Stewardship', containing recommendations for improving engagement practices. The Working Party has asked the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) to take forward two of the report’s recommendations, by developing a good practice guide to improve the quality of engagement activity, and identifying more ways for companies and institutional investors to seek and provide feedback on the quality of meetings.
The Institute has established a Steering Group to help carry out this work– chaired by Sir John Egan, former chair of Severn Trent plc – which is seeking responses to the consultation by 30 November, 2012.
Areas covered in the consultation document include:
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whether the nature of the discussion between a company and its investors needed to change, with more emphasis on a dialogue which built and encouraged a long-term relationship with, and commitment to, the company;
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what improvements can be made to the process of holding engagement meetings;
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whether companies and institutional investors should seek feedback on the quality of meetings, and how that might be most effectively done.
Sir John Egan commented: "The steering group is firmly of the view that the health of the engagement process is one of the drivers which increases alignment between a company and its owners, and that transforming the engagement interaction can create value for both parties".
Subject to the outcome of the consultation process, the Steering Group intends to issue guidance in March 2013.
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