BlackRock's 2023 global voting spotlight (abbreviated report here), which capture its proxy voting-focused stewardship activities for the 12 months ended June 30, reveals a plethora of noteworthy statistics, case studies, and instructive commentary that should help inform companies' engagement and disclosure going forward.
Key takeaways include:
Noting the overly prescriptive, micromanagerial, or economically meritless nature of many environmental and social shareholder proposals that went to a vote (consistent with a theme articulated by other several other large institutional investors this season), BlackRock’s support for such proposals globally declined from 47% in 2021 (of 172 proposals) to 22% last season (of 321 proposals) to 7% this season (of 399 such proposals). The report also indicates that companies had already substantively met the requests of 60% of such shareholder proposals that went to a vote.
The US, which accounted for 78% of BlackRock’s votes on shareholder proposals, epitomizes the rise in quantity and decrease in quality of shareholder proposals:
As has been previously reported, as proposal quality has declined, median shareholder support has also dropped substantially, particularly for E&S proposals:
BlackRock supported 92% of directors in the Americas this season. Lack of support was attributed primarily to concerns about board quality and composition (including lack of independence) (see Figure 5 on page 17). The report attributes better business risk disclosure to fewer director “no” votes.