Investment Corporation Exercises Voting Rights Directly for the First Time at Google Shareholders' Meeting... "Contributing to ESG Improvement"

Participated in Alphabet's Shareholders Meeting on the 2nd... Also Voted at Meta, ExxonMobil, and Others

Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) exercised voting rights directly for the first time since its establishment. As a long-term investment institution, it aims to strengthen responsible investment by actively exercising shareholder rights to enhance corporate value.

KIC announced on the 1st that it has started to directly exercise voting rights in major investee companies, beginning with the U.S. life sciences company Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Last week, KIC participated in voting at the shareholders' meetings of French energy company TotalEnergies and Swiss mining company Glencore, and on the 31st, at the shareholders' meetings of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and global energy company Exxon Mobil.

Furthermore, on June 2nd, KIC will also directly exercise voting rights at the shareholders' meeting of Alphabet, Google's holding company.

In exercising voting rights, KIC focuses on improving ESG at major global companies, including voting in favor of shareholder proposals aimed at strengthening climate change responses. It plans to support cooperation among major domestic and international institutional investors in addressing climate change.

President Jin Seung-ho said, "Active exercise of shareholder rights is one of the significant investment activities of a sovereign wealth fund," adding, "Through direct exercise of voting rights, we can promote sustainable growth of companies and lead successful ESG investments in the mid to long term."

President Jin also stated, "We will actively cooperate so that domestic institutional investors can strengthen responsible investment through active shareholder activities targeting global companies."

KIC established the Stewardship Principles regarding fiduciary responsibility in 2018. The following year, it began exercising shareholder rights for the stock portfolio directly managed by KIC through a specialized shareholder rights institution. It also evaluates the level of responsible investment when selecting external asset managers.

Starting this year, KIC’s internal staff will directly analyze proposals and exercise voting rights for major investee companies. The 'Responsible Investment Team,' established in 2021 as a dedicated department for responsible investment, conducts proposal analysis and related tasks.

KIC selects companies for shareholder rights exercise mainly based on ▲the size of holdings (portfolio weight and shareholding ratio) or ▲the need to improve ESG practices. This year, it plans to exercise voting rights in more than 10 companies.

In the process of exercising voting rights, KIC actively utilizes the Collaboration Platform for collaborative engagement activities of the UN PRI, which it joined last year. PRI is the world's largest responsible investment network, supporting institutional investors' shareholder activities through campaigns on shareholder proposals and sharing voting directions among member institutions in advance.

Institutional investors in advanced countries with developed shareholder capitalism have already enhanced the value of investee companies through active shareholder activities. Recently, awareness of responsible investment has expanded in Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, and shareholder rights exercise is becoming more active.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.