The FCA’s Vote Reporting Group (VRG) and the PLSA have produced a new Vote Reporting Template for UK asset managers, which is hosted here on the PLSA website.
The new template has been developed by the industry, for the industry, and builds on the previous work of the VRG and the PLSA’s existing Vote Reporting Template. Together, we are confident that this new template provides a comprehensive, streamlined and simplified vote reporting template that:
- Improves vote reporting quality and consistency.
- Reduces ongoing / overall reporting costs for asset managers.
- Increases transparency and comparability for clients.
- Enhances engagement and market discipline.
The template supports sustainable finance goals, regulatory developments, and ensure greater alignment between asset owners’ and asset managers’ stewardship objectives and activities. It also supports FCA objectives on market integrity and growth by improving voting transparency, accountability, and investor confidence.
Click the image to download the template
Details of the new template
The original PLSA template was created to efficiently help trustees meet their new reporting requirements in terms of their managers’ wider voting behaviour and provide information on a range of most significant votes (MSVs). It achieved good take-up but was not intended to provide standardised voting information.
The new template has been developed to ‘fill the gap’, building upon USA SEC NP-X reporting to provide this information, in response to the growing recognition across the industry that: asset managers were being asked for this information cut in a variety of different ways to suit different clients and their advisers, and asset owners were still not getting the consistent, comparable information across all their managers’ voting activity.
The work of the VRG will be at the heart of the new template with relevant elements of the existing PLSA template complimenting it where it has been deemed necessary.
FAQs document
We have also produced an FAQs document which addresses key challenges that have arisen through industry engagement during the development of the new Vote Reporting Group template and subsequently, the development of the new PLSA template. It is intended to support understanding and provide clarity on the purpose of the new PLSA template.
