Session details

This session will consider the global trend of increasing number of institutional investors in public companies, and the global trend of stewardship code and corporate governance code. The degree of ownership engagement varies among institutional investors and there are many institutional investors who do not actively monitor portfolio companies and have active ownership engagements. This type of investor exercises voting rights based on a set of generic, pre-defined criteria and external proxy advisors.

Various investment approaches consider environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors in portfolio selection and management (eg, excluding from portfolio based on specific ESG criteria, systematic and explicit inclusion based on ESG factors, direct corporate engagement from the perspective of risks and opportunities) and there has been an increase in institutional investors adopting such approaches. The panellists shall discuss how those changes affect public companies’ behaviour and business (eg, identifying material ESG factors, disclosure on ESG factors, new opportunity for financing).