BlackRock expands pass-through voting programme to Switzerland

BlackRock has expanded its pass-through voting programme to institutional investors in Switzerland, offering them direct influence over voting rights in funds worth around CHF4.7bn (€5bn).

Investors in the institutional classes of 10 Swiss-domiciled funds can now select from 16 third-party voting policies or continue to delegate voting authority to BlackRock’s investment stewardship team.

BlackRock said it was extending the offering to Switzerland in response to “growing interest from Swiss institutional clients in participating in the stewardship of their capital”.

Until now, in Switzerland investors could retain or exercise their own proxy voting rights only if they had segregated mandates.

“By implementing Voting Choice for the institutional classes of 10 Swiss-domiciled funds, we are providing clients with easy and efficient options to participate in the proxy voting process covering a range of voting preferences,” said Dirk Klee, country head of Switzerland for BlackRock.

Vincent Kaufmann, chief executive of Ethos Foundation, told IPE the Swiss pension fund-backed organisation welcomed BlackRock expanding its programme.

“Over the past years we have seen increasing divergence between Swiss asset owners’ voting and stewardship expectations and the way large asset managers, in particular US-based ones such as BlackRock, have voted in recent years,” he said.

Earlier this year pension fund members of one of Ethos’ engagement pools started engaging the largest asset managers on the way they are voting.

In the UK, pension funds such as Greater Manchester Pension Fund and the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee have adopted pass-through voting via their asset manager Legal & General Investment Management, which has partnered with fintech Tumelo.

Unveiled in late 2021, BlackRock’s Voting Choice programme is the largest pass-through system in the industry, now covering more than 650 global funds.

Globally, some $2.7trn (€2.3trn) in assets are already eligible for BlackRock’s programme, representing more than 90% of the asset manager’s index equity assets under management. Global clients representing $662bn in assets under management are availing themselves of Voting Choice. 

Earlier this year, State Street Investment Management (previously State Street Global Advisors) launched an opt-in sustainability-focused stewardship service for institutional separately managed account clients.

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