Who makes the voting decision at a particular investor can vary. For the larger investors, they tend to have stewardship teams who vote and handle engagements – and that is straightforward. Sometimes stewardship teams are referred to as proxy committees.
Beyond that, it can be tricky and take experience to learn how each investor operates and who are the players. You could have an active portfolio manager who makes the voting decision and sits alongside the stewardship person who just provides advice. Even more tricky – there could be several active portfolio managers who make the ultimate voting decision, and they could disagree and decide to split the vote.
On the other side of the coin, there might be an index fund where there’s no dedicated analyst and, as a result, all the voting decisions are made within the stewardship group. It’s helpful to understand where that final decision about the vote is coming from when setting up an engagement. And the roles – and personnel – change within investors all the time, and this all can be a moving target.
I should point out that there are engagements with shareholders that aren’t related to soliciting votes for the annual shareholders meeting. Your IR team, CFO and CEO will handle meetings with portfolio managers and analyst teams – as well as the call backs after each post-earnings call. Occasionally, they want the governance folks present during those meetings, but that’s rare because much of the discussion for these types of meetings center on the company’s business strategy, plans and financial analysis.
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