Pass-through voting tech to boost shareholder democracy among fund investors

Lower chances of divestment

Voting on key issues at shareholder meetings, until now done exclusively by fund managers, is being extended to their clients through new pass-through voting technology, Investment Week can reveal.

Pass-through voting is the mechanism by which investors in a pooled fund can vote the shares in proportion to the AUM they have invested - giving them a direct say in how the companies they invest in are run. With growing pressure on fund managers in both the UK and US to pass through votes to investors, a whitepaper by investor voting fintech Tumelo found that passing on the decision to vote on contentious issues to clients could potentially lower the chances of divestment from funds. Fund managers seem to be acting on this pressure, the paper argued, given recent developments from m...