SSGA's robust 2018-19 Stewardship Report includes these and many other noteworthy engagement and voting takeaways:
- Of a total of 1,533 engagements last year, 686 were characterized as "comprehensive" (in-person meetings or conference calls), and 65% (on par with last year) were North America-focused. A board member was present at nearly 40% of those comprehensive engagements.
- 443 engagements were associated with State Street's Fearless Girl campaign on board gender diversity. With regard to the US specifically, since the campaign's launch in 2017, 44% of Russell 3000 companies State Street identified as not having a woman on their board added a female director or committed to do so. Globally, the report indicates that 57% of identified companies have failed to take action such that, in 2020, State Street will vote against the entire Nom/Gov Committee (not just the Committee Chair) ) in its target markets if board gender diversity concerns at a company remain and it is unable to "engage in productive dialogue" with that company for four consecutive years.
- State Street voted against 40 companies that didn't satisfy its comply-or-explain ISG compliance screen expectations (reported on here), out of a total of 66 companies that failed the initial screening. Those that initially failed but didn't garner an "against" vote reportedly either improved - or were able to provide a sufficient rationale for - their governance practices, as further detailed here:
See also the list of companies engaged by topic in the Appendix.
See State Street's release; these articles from Institutional Investor and IPE; these recent reports: "State Street Reports on Climate Disclosure Analysis," "State Street: Climate Change Risk Oversight Framework," "State Street to Boards: Here's How to Increase Your Gender Diversity," and "State Street Explains its Proprietary ESG Scoring Approach"; and additional information & resources on our Institutional Investors page. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!