Engagement

Engagement is key to improving corporate behaviour over the long term. We use our corporate access, research capabilities and investment scale to promote change.

Ways we engage with companies

There are many ways we engage with companies to facilitate positive change.  We focus on issues such as governance and remuneration, board composition, supply chain management, including modern slavery, environment and social issues.

Company meetings and formal correspondence
Shareholder resolutions
Collaborative engagement
Proxy voting
Public Policy

Engagement themes

In addition to company specific themes, we’ve been focussing on five key themes for engagement.

Modern slavery

We do not tolerate modern slavery or human trafficking within our business and take a risk-based approach to managing our supply chain. 

Through our engagement, we aim to encourage better practices amongst our investee companies to increase transparency and disclosure regarding supply chain management. This should ensure systematic monitoring of human rights in company supply chains.   Our approach to combat slavery and human trafficking can be found here.

Voting

Voting is an essential tool for working with companies to help them pursue policies that lead to sustainable returns and increase value for a broad range of stakeholders.

SMSF Awards - Highly commended
Voting record 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019.
In 2019 we voted at more than 4,300 shareholder meetings, voting against management in nearly a quarter of cases to protect the rights of investors.
Region Votes with management Votes against management** Abstain* Blocked Took no action*** Total
Americas 645 412 9 1 7 1074
Asia 1397 81 16 2 7 1503
Europe 294 282 17 18 60 728
Japan 221 148 0 0 0 369
MEA 22 17 0 0 4 443
Oceania 144 35 11 0 7 197
UK 391 55 3 2 4 455
Total 3114 1030 113 23 89 4369

Source: Fidelity International, 31st December 2019.

This information is distinct from the voting record disclosed by Fidelity Management & Research Co.
* Excludes funds locally registered in France, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
** 'Against Mgmt' and 'Abstain' meetings are where Fidelity voted against management or abstained in respect of one or more resolutions.
*** 'Took No Action' meetings relate principally to the General Meetings of Fidelity Funds. 

For more information on how the Australian registered managed investment schemes voted on each resolution in relation to Australian listed entities in the 12 months to 30 June 2019, please refer to our Proxy Voting page.

Related insights

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At Fidelity we focus on engagement in two ways - specialised engagements - those company-specific themes we have identified through our deep bottom up fundamental research, and thematic engagement - key themes we are addressing at an organisational level.  

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