2024 Stewardship Investor Survey – Maximizing Engagement: What Investors Want
Stewardship survey at a glance: Investors believe the stewardship work they do can impact investment performance 72% of investors expect their stewardship activities to have an impact on investment performance over the next three to four years. Relationship-building is a key factor for accepting an engagement, but timing matters 51% of investors say their relationship […]
Ray Garcia is a Leader, Matt DiGuiseppe is Managing Director, and Paul DeNicola is a Principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. This post is based on their PwC memorandum.
Stewardship survey at a glance:
| Investors believe the stewardship work they do can impact investment performance
72% of investors expect their stewardship activities to have an impact on investment performance over the next three to four years. |
Relationship-building is a key factor for accepting an engagement, but timing matters
51% of investors say their relationship with portfolio company management influences their decision to take a meeting during proxy season. Yet, 81% say the chance to build a relationship with that same management team is a factor in agreeing to an offseason engagement. |
| Boards have an opportunity to improve engagement
23% of investors say they are dissatisfied with the quality of engagement discussion with board members. |
Companies have an opportunity to provide enhanced disclosures to help investors understand how sustainability impacts the business
55% of investors are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with how management connects sustainability to the company’s long-term growth in engagements and communications. |
| Investors are incorporating sustainability into their analysis, but are split on the importance of targets
46% of investors say achieving sustainability targets will have no or low impact on financial performance. But they are considering the quantitative and qualitative impacts of sustainability factors like climate and talent on financial performance. |
The proposed action matters most when stewardship teams make voting decisions on shareholder proposals
62% of investors say a proponent’s political views are somewhat or not at all important when evaluating a shareholder proposal. Instead, 86% see the alignment of the resolved clause with a perceived risk to be a more important factor in their analysis. |
