Investor activism takes a step forward. The National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has given the green light this Wednesday to the new code of good practices, which will promote this practice among managers and Spanish institutional investors. This code, which is voluntary, will, however, be mandatory for firms that choose to adopt it, which will have three years to assume all the points approved by the financial markets supervisor.
The new guide, which incorporates the ‘stewarship code’ into the Spanish market, reinforces the Spanish legal regulations that already oblige asset managers to record how they vote at shareholder meetings. The new code, however, goes much further, since its adopters will not only have to inform about how they vote, but also incorporate and explain to their participants the specific policies that they will follow. Experts hope that the addition of the reform of the Capital Companies Law and this voluntary adoption code will force the asset management industry to be more active in voting in meetings and also to design implication (influence) policies to that the companies in which they participate progress in certain aspects. These are strategies closely linked to the increase in ESG criteria.
