Publication Building the Momentum for Effective Investor Stewardship – Recommendations for change

Executive Summary

For good stewardship to be exercised by asset managers, the meaning, the significance and the benefits of stewardship need to be in the minds of asset owners when they are making their decisions. Ideally, asset owners should empower their managers to act with conviction when acting as stewards of the funds they manage. Asset owners may decide to dismiss the importance of stewardship and choose asset managers who do not give this priority, but this should be as a result of an informed choice, not inertia.

Standard Life Investments and Tomorrow’s Company held two dialogues in March and May of 2013, attended by representatives of every link in the stewardship chain, from asset owners to companies. The dialogues were intended to build on the current debate stimulated by the Kay Report on Long-Term Decision making in UK Equity Markets. Unlike many of the responses to the Kay Report, and statements on the subject of stewardship, this document is the result of an extended and practical discussion amongst all parts of the investment value chain and those who shape its rules and operations – asset owners, asset managers, investment consultants, company chairs and executives, trade associations, civil society organisations, government and regulators. Throughout the document we use the term ‘institutional investors’ when the discussion covers both asset owners and asset managers.