31 Pension Protection Fund Responsible Investment Report 2021/22 ESCALATION AND EXERCISING SHAREHOLDER RIGHTS CONTINUED Our criteria for signi昀椀cant votes Summary of some of our signi昀椀cant vote outcomes Along with guidance from the PLSA around signi昀椀cant Date of Vote Company Resolution For/Against Reasoning for voting decision Outcome of the vote votes, we also use our own criteria to 昀氀ag material votes Management that we need to scrutinise carefully. We have created a voting watchlist of companies (see below) for which we get 2 June 2021 Alphabet Inc (US) 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Against management Five of the eight shareholder proposals were deemed to Level of dissent by particular coverage from EOS and have an agreed timescale on all noted resolutions warrant support including the proposals relating to equal resolution: Applicable for action to execute votes proactively for signi昀椀cant and voting rights across all types of stock. Other governance- to B Stock: material positions in our portfolio. After deciding our related shareholder proposals were supported, including vote intentions, we access the voting platforms of our appointing a director with human and/or civil rights 3 – 16.19% investment managers for any pooled mandates and submit experience and a report of whistle-blower policies and 4 – 31.51% vote instructions. This process was enhanced during the practices to assist in the analysis of underlying culture year under review as part of our voting consolidation. and employee morale. 5 – 10.51% 6 – 12.4% Our voting watchlist includes: • Companies where we own over 1 per cent of equity 7 – 13.58% • Companies that we hold directly (which we 4 March 2022 Apple Inc (US) 9 – Report on Civil Against Our manager supported proposals related to diversity 53.6% support for escalate to our CIO for a voting decision) Rights Audit and inclusion policies as we consider these issues to be proposal • Companies with speci昀椀c issues of concern a material risk to companies. (e.g., practices that are non-compliant with the UN Global Compact) 18 November 2021 Goodman Group Elect Rebecca McGrath Against A vote against was applied due to a lack of diversity at 20.8% against • Votes related to a speci昀椀c initiative in which (Australia) as Director board level. It is expected that a company should have a we’re involved (e.g., companies on the Climate diverse board, with at least 25% of board members being Action 100+ list) women. Companies are expected to increase female participation both on the board and in leadership Each quarter, our segregated voting and engagement positions over time. reports are uploaded to our website. We currently do not 17 September 2021 Alibaba Group (China) 1.1 – Elect Director Against Our manager has a longstanding policy advocating for 16.4% against publish resolution-speci昀椀c vote reporting. However, we will Joseph C. Tsai the separation of the roles of CEO and board chair. These respond to individual requests from members and other two roles are substantially di昀昀erent, requiring distinct skills stakeholders directly if a request for this information is and experiences. made following a vote. Apple Inc has committed to undertake a civil rights audit following a majority of investors voting in favour of the shareholder resolution. Goodman Group has appointed a second Next steps woman to the board in June 2022 resulting in 25% female board representation. No other notable outcomes have been recorded. We are currently looking at ways to share detail on our voting behaviour to all of our members via our members website. Given the PPF aims to provide a high level of transparency to all our stakeholders, we want to assess the feasibility of providing information on a resolution-by-resolution basis to ensure that it can be easily digested and understood.
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