Investor Engagement Policy

Step up with active ownership

You’re saving in a Pension, Stocks and Shares ISA or Unit Trust / Investment Account that invests your money in our funds. Some of our funds directly invest in bonds and shares your behalf. Some of our funds invest in a collection of other funds – our funds that do that are known as funds of funds.

Owning shares means being a shareholder and getting the opportunity to influence the companies invested in, by voting on what the company does. For both shares and bonds, there is the opportunity to influence companies by engaging with them on important issues. For our directly invested funds our expert Investment Adviser aberdeen votes and engages with companies. In our funds of funds, both voting, and engagement is carried out by the Fund Manager of the fund we invest in.

Being an active owner means making sure the voice your money has is being used to influence companies with the aim to make sure they put your money to good use. This means considering more than just the financial performance of the company – it’s also about considering the affect they have on the world and working to make it positive. More and more, it means looking at the company’s plans for the future to consider whether these are good for people and the planet.

We are moving to investing responsibly across all of our funds. This is shifting our investments from just following different stock market indices, where we don’t pick and choose the companies we invest in, to considering people and the planet in the way they are using your money to grow. An important part of this is using the voice your money has through active ownership; we need to make sure the experts we work with such as our Investment Adviser aberdeen and other Fund Managers are engaging with companies on the most important issues and – if investing in shares – using voting rights to work towards positive change.

Our Investment Adviser aberdeen has a policy which sets out their approach to active ownership and the issues they seek to influence companies on.

Engage towards positive change

Our funds invest in a lot of companies, so they need to engage on the most important issues and the companies that need to change the most to move towards being positive in their impact.

Funds Managers will have processes in place to work with companies and use common goals with other investors to try to progress important issues for everyone – like human rights and reducing carbon emissions.

Engage towards positive change

Our funds invest in a lot of companies, so they need to engage on the most important issues and the companies that need to change the most to move towards being positive in their impact.

Funds Managers will have processes in place to work with companies and use common goals with other investors to try to progress important issues for everyone – like human rights and reducing carbon emissions.