We are active and responsible participants in financial markets. We are also enthusiastic advocates for progressive change as stewards of our clients’ investments. Engagement and voting have a dual purpose. First, to generate additional insights into company practices, which then feed into investment decisions. Secondly, stewardship enables us to influence positive improvements in investee companies, which we refer to as WHEB’s ‘Investor Contribution’ in our impact framework.
ENGAGEMENT CASE STUDIES
With an average holding period of 4-7 years for our investments, our view is inherently longer-term than investment industry averages. This means that we naturally act as owners of investee companies, rather than short-term traders.
Our engagement activity with portfolio companies is mostly proactive, based on strategic objectives and is often carried out over several years. Where necessary, we use escalation tactics or collaborate with other investors to achieve our desired results.
Voting
We view the voting rights that we have as equity holders as an opportunity to exercise a progressive influence on company governance and strategy. WHEB’s policy is to exercise our rights at 100% of company meetings where we are eligible to vote.
Our voting is guided by our policies which are intended to promote long-term value for shareholders and mitigate risk at portfolio companies.
We publish full voting records which detail every shareholder resolution on which WHEB is eligible to vote in the quarter, how we have voted and a rationale for our decision to vote in this way.
Stewardship reports & policies
These reports set out the policies and processes that direct WHEB’s stewardship activities. It also documents the extensive work that we’ve done with portfolio companies over the year to encourage them to improve their ESG and impact practices.
We use the full suite of tools at our disposal including voting at company meetings, engaging bilaterally with companies, escalating engagement to work collaboratively with others who share our objectives and, occasionally divesting and publicly reporting our reasons for doing so.
The reports provide:
- summary data of the work undertaken in the previous year
- detailed case studies that illustrate our decision-making processes
- the impact that we can have via our ‘investor contribution’