Vestcor endorses the Stewardship Principles of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG) | October 2020

Vestcor’s Board of Directors recently endorsed CCGG’s Stewardship Principles alongside a number of other Canadian based institutional investors.  Originally developed in 2005, the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG) recently updated their Stewardship Principles, designed for institutional investors in fulfilling their responsibilities toward their clients and beneficiaries, while enhancing the value of their investments. Vestcor believes that these Stewardship Principles provide an excellent complement to our corporate Responsible Investment Guidelines.

The CCGG Principles are specifically meant to guide “institutions who invest in Canadian public equities be active and effective stewards of their investments and are directed to both asset owners and asset managers”.  While they make it very clear that our role as an investment manager is not to manage public companies in which we invest, the Principles provide focus on ensuring that we fulfill our role as a fiduciary on behalf our clients and beneficiaries through our responsibilities to exercise voting rights, monitor board oversight, and much more.

The seven Stewardship Principles intended to guide institutions such as our own are outlined below. Detailed descriptions of each are available within the Stewardship Principles document available at ccgg.ca/policies.

• Principle 1 – Develop an approach to stewardship
• Principle 2 – Monitor companies
• Principle 3 – Report on voting activities
•  Principle 4 – Engage with companies
• Principle 5 – Collaborate with other institutional investors
• Principle 6 – Work with policy makers
• Principle 7 – Focus on long-term sustainable value

To better understand how Vestcor integrates these Principles into our day-to-day operations, refer to our Responsible Investment Guidelines available at www.vestcor.org/investments, under “Investment Program Guidelines”.

As a long-term investor, we seek to enhance shareholder value for the benefit of the funds under our management, with the objectives of maximizing risk-adjusted investment returns and protecting accumulated assets. Endorsing CCGG’s Stewardship Principles helps us to further focus our intentions.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@vestcor.org.