Governance Watch from Manifest is a cost-effective corporate governance monitoring service for pensions funds. It is designed to meet the needs of investment funds seeking compliance with investment best practice, particularly the Myners’ Principles regarding shareholder activism, expert advice and trustee knowledge.
Compliance Made Easy
Manifest is committed to providing independent, timely and thorough analysis of governance issues for concerned investors. Manifest’s governance experts can ensure that funds can stay on top of shareholder governance monitoring issues in a time and cost-effective way. Some of the UK’s largest funds already rely on Manifest to implement their governance policy so you can rest assured that you are in safe hands.
What does Governance Watch Offer?
A Statement of Investment Principles policy on governance and voting is the first step to ensuring compliance with trustees’ fiduciary responsibilities. But what about on-going monitoring and follow-up? In an already hectic and pressured environment, trustees may find themselves spending considerable amounts of time and effort checking to see if their mandates have been accurately implemented.
Governance Watch eliminates costly, time-consuming administration by providing trustees with a succinct executive summary of the action items relevant to the fund. Governance Watch not only monitors governance and voting policy issues but provides timely alerts to important up-coming events as well as offering the comfort of a thorough audit of policy implementation by the fund manager(s).
Governance Watch offers three levels of service to meet trustees’ needs:
Level 1 – Best Practice Compliance Monitoring
At the entry level of service, Governance Watch provides the following:
- A best-practice governance and voting policy that takes into account the very latest recommendations from the Combined Code, ISC and NAPF principles. Funds will have the confidence that your voting policy reflects the most up-to-date standards. Manifest’s wide-ranging contacts within the fund management industry ensure that we are constantly in tune with the very latest developments and can reflect developments in your policy and SIP;
- A weekly portfolio analysis of up-coming shareholder meetings. This executive summary report enables at a glance analysis of issues to keep members in tune with issues as they arise. Manifest’s rapid turnaround of analysis allows plenty of time to review events with fund managers before voting. Only the events pertinent to the fund are highlighted saving considerable time and effort; and
- Monthly portfolio holdings review to reflect any changes in holdings.
Level 2 – Bespoke Policy Development
This intermediate level of service introduces elements of tailoring to provide a more bespoke service. Level 2 additionally offers:
A bespoke governance and voting template is developed based on particular concerns the fund may have. Because our analysts perform the most detailed sorting and sifting of complex issues, you will only have to focus on the issues and topics of concern to your fund. For hard pressed fiduciaries this makes significant economic sense compared to the daunting task of reading 40 or more reports each week during the busy ‘peak season’.
- Bi-monthly portfolio updates;
- A quarterly portfolio summary analysis of the issues pertinent to your fund so that they can be compared with fund manager reports for any variances; and
- An annual monitoring meeting to review and refine policy.
Level 3 – Bespoke Policy & Vote Audit
Level 3 is designed to offer funds the added comfort of knowing that their policies are being implemented through a thorough audit process. In addition to the elements of Level 1 and 2, Level 3 customers will benefit from:
- Audit trail and variance analysis: Manifest’s sophisticated vote management software that compares the fund’s voting policy against fund manager voting reports looking for any differences between policy and activity. These variances may well be fully justified, however you will be now be in a position to discuss these differences with your fund managers at your regular meetings. In a multi-manager scenario, this type of monitoring will help to eliminate variances in voting activity and create a constructive dialogue with your fund managers about future activity;
- Weekly portfolio updates; and
- 6-monthly meetings with Manifest’s analysts to review policy and activism issues.
Why Manifest?
Manifest ensures that concerned investment fiduciaries can monitor and audit their governance, voting and activism policies quickly, reliably and cost effectively. Manifest has significant operational experience in the governance field having working with some of the UK’s most active and demanding fund managers since 1996.
- Consistent track record
- Knowledge & understanding of pension funds needs
- Stable & committed team
- Quality-driven, best value service
- Independent, UK-owned & managed
- Your fund is pro-actively updated with governance best practice and key voting issues
- Your trustees can keep their knowledge of the issues fully up to date.
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