The Minerva Voting Guidelines

The Minerva Voting Guidelines

Minerva helps investors vote their shares efficiently and effectively using state of the art technology and information tools. An actionable voting policy is integral to that process and uniquely, Minerva tailors all its guidance to each client’s individual preferences and stewardship requirements by default, adhering our approach that rejects a one-size-fits-all model. Customised voting guidance is based on a blend of overarching global principles, supplemented by regional guidelines based on local market standards, all of which can be flexed to create a truly individual voting policy.

Minerva Voting Platform

Minerva’s voting award-wining platform provides efficient vote management tools and a fully integrated policy engine which ensures that client’s policy preferences are applied consistently. The policy engine is a sophisticated decision-support algorithm which combines analyst research and objective data points thereby creating an efficient and streamlined process. Minerva Voting Policy Templates are completely transparent to clients and available online where they can be reviewed by market or by policy issue.

Global Principles

Minerva benchmark base policies start with supra-national bodies such as G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance[1], Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)[2], Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI)[3] and investors bodies such as the International Corporate Governance Network’s (ICGN) Global Corporate Governance Guidelines (5th Edition)[4] and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) [5]. There are six core fundamental standards outlined in the OECD Principles. While the ICGN’s guidelines incorporate OECD Principles, ICGN emphasises nine focus areas:

G20/OECD Principles


An effective governance framework
The rights of shareholders
The equitable treatment of shareholders
The role of stakeholders
Disclosure and transparency
The responsibilities of the board

ICGN Guidelines


Corporate objective
Corporate boards
Corporate culture
Risk Management
Remuneration
Audit
Disclosure and transparency
Shareholder rights
Shareholder responsibilities

Local Standards

Governance principles, company law and listing rules vary significantly from market to market. Therefore, Minerva also analyses companies through the lens of local market standards. Minerva currently has 43 local market standards.

Voting Template

Shareholder resolutions and governance principles are rarely matched; therefore, Minerva’s Voting Template combines eight macro policy pillars together with nine categories of voteable meeting resolutions. These are supported by sub-pillars and categories to ensure that a voting policy can be effectively translated to each local market. Up to 2,000 questions and data points are used to inform each voting template.

Governance Ratings

The Minerva voting guidelines and associated data points have been developed to provide complementary stewardship support services, most notably a series of highly customizable ratings, as follows:

The Minerva Sustainable Funds Rating
The Minerva Governance Rating
The Minerva Sustainability Rating
The Minerva Remuneration Rating

Minerva’s Market Templates

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bermuda
Brazil
Canada
Cayman Islands
China

Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Guernsey
Hong Kong

India
Indonesia
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Japan

Jersey
Korea (South)
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway

Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Russian Federation
Singapore
South Africa
Spain

Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

Call Us

To find out how Minerva can help with your global voting, please get in touch to arrange a personalised demonstration.

Call us on +44 (0)1376 503500 or email us at hello@minerva.info

Last Updated: 12 January 2023