AP7 is stepping up the degree of gender diversity it expects to see on the boards of the companies it invests in in Japan and India, now that more women are taking up the corporate supervisory roles in these two key investment countries for the pension fund.
The SEK1.5trn (€130bn) institution, the largest of Sweden’s national pension funds, published its 2026 voting policy last week, which it says specifies how the fund will vote at the annual general meetings (AGMs) of the nearly 2,000 companies in which it holds shares.
AP7 said it votes at about 99% of the AGMs where it has voting rights, but in accordance with the Act on AP Funds, it does not vote at Swedish companies.
Last year, AP7 said, the AGMs it voted at were held in 50 different countries, with the US, India and Japan dominating the list by accounting for 48% of those shareholder meetings.
It said an update in the 2026 voting policy was linked to India and Japan, where the proportion of women on corporate boards had historically been lower than in other countries.
The Stockholm-based pension fund said: “As more women take up positions on boards in these markets as well, it is reasonable to raise the bar.
“We have previously required that companies have at least one woman on the board. Going forward, AP7 will vote against nomination committees in companies where less than 20% are made up of the underrepresented gender,” it stated.
The pension fund, which runs the default option in Sweden’s first-pillar premium pension system, added that in other markets that had higher standards for board diversity, its expectations were also higher.
Emma Henningsson, head of active ownership at AP7, said: “Our vote is a way of standing up for the long-term interests of savers. Companies that are lagging behind in sustainability work or governance issues can count on us to act.”
Swedish pension funds expressed disappointment recently that telecoms group Ericsson has decided to remove gender diversity targets from its executive remuneration programme, but signalled they would continue to engage with the firm ahead of its AGM at the end of March.
AP7 said its voting policy placed particular emphasis on climate change and deforestation risk – issues which it said had resulted in the pension fund voting against the board’s recommendation at 205 general meetings in 2025 on climate grounds.
“Voting measures are also taken against companies with insufficient climate reporting or inadequate management of deforestation risks, or companies that, despite demand from investors, do not review and report on their climate-related lobbying,” AP7 said.
