2017 Annual Stewardship Report and Voting Disclosure

We are now reporting on our stewardship activities more regularly via our quarterly investment updates to clients. However, not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to share a whole year’s worth of activity, we have also promised to produce annual Stewardship Reports at the end of Q2. We are delighted to be able to share the 2017/2018 report with you here.

This issue of our quarterly report covers our voting activities from March to June 2018 but also details our progress since June 2017. We have had lots of interesting developments, research reports and engagements that we’ve pulled together to give a snapshot of the work done on behalf of our clients throughout the year. We choose to write our annual reports from June to June because from the end of March to June is voting season, when most UK companies hold their company meetings. We opt to report from the end of this point rather than at the end of the calendar year, as this marks the close of this busy period.

In addition to our annual report, we like to show our commitment to transparency by publishing our full voting record for the past year. This is the second year that we have disclosed this information in line with the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) Stewardship Code. One development this year has been that Castlefield were assessed as a Tier 1 signatory of the Code. Tier 1 represents companies that explain their approach to stewardship transparently and to a high standard; we are proud of this recognition of our efforts. In order to maintain this status, we have published our voting disclosure here. 

During the last twelve months, we have built on our existing internal guidelines on voting and refined our criteria in certain aspects of good company governance. We have hosted events, joined other investors to press companies to improve in certain areas and, most importantly, continued to act on our commitment to be responsible stewards. We hope you enjoy reading about our approach and please let us know if you have any questions regarding the information detailed in the report.

Written by Kate Hewitt