MINERVA COVID19 UPDATE

23 March 2020

On Monday, 16th March 2020, Minerva initiated its Business Continuity Plan after one of our team was placed in isolation with COVID19 symptoms. Since then we have taken a number of steps to protect the well-being of our staff and interests of our clients and stakeholders.

• Our offices at 9 Freebournes Court are closed and all our staff are working remotely.
• All client meetings will now take place via Teams/Skype/GoToMeeting or telephone.
• All systems are fully operational and we continue to provide high-quality research and proxy vote management uninterrupted

OUR COMMITMENT TO CLIENTS

Over the years, many of our team have worked remotely and so we have policies and systems in place to accommodate working from home (WFH). This means that we can, and will, continue to deliver essential stewardship support services during the busy and unpredictable days and weeks head.

Clearly there is never a good time for a pandemic; the timing of COVID19 is particularly challenging for the proxy services community because of the intensity of the AGM season. In terms of disruption, we are already started to see the impact of cancelled or delayed meetings.

This chart shows meetings received as @ 01-06-2020 where the purple bar represents 2019 meeting dates, and the green is 2020 meeting days. The spike in week 6 relates to our increased coverage of Korean meetings this year. The drift between the two years is now significant.

Minerva is processing all agendas, annual reports and sustainability disclosures as normal. Moreover, we are encouraging companies to publish these important documents – even if the AGM is going to be postponed or delayed. This will help us to help investors when meetings are ultimately re-convened. We recognise that there will be significant post-balance sheet issues to consider, however, please be assured, these will also be processed as they arrive – hopefully not all at the same time.

If you would like to know more about our plans, you can contact us as normal and we will be happy to explain.

OUR COMMITMENT TO STAKEHOLDERS

We are immensely grateful to our many staff, suppliers and counter-parties who are showing such amazing team spirit as we navigate uncharted waters. The uncertainty makes planning difficult for everyone; however will do the best we can to support all our partners so that we can come through this situation together and stronger.

Last Updated: 2 June 2020