Stewardship reporting. Reporting by asset managers on their stewardship activities has been growing in prominence. Many investment institutions deploy substantial resources to this effort and produce a range of regular disclosures. There are many reasons for this greater extent of stewardship reporting. Firstly, it is increasingly required by regulators and membership organizations, for example, the UK Stewardship Code, or the Principles for Responsible Investment requirements. It is also increasingly expected by clients: there's the asset owners and the beneficiaries. It can also serve to enhance the public perception of asset managers, helping to win new clients. So, what is reported when we refer to stewardship reporting? Well, asset management companies provide information on their stewardship policies and arrangements. They explain who is responsible for the process, how it is done, and what resources are devoted to the stewardship effort. Regular company-wide reports also detail how monitoring, voting, and engagement has been done. These reports also show how many general meeting resolutions the fund managers have voted on, how many times they have voted in line with management proposals, how many times they voted against, and how frequently they vote in favor or against resolutions proposed by other investors, and how many times they themselves have put forward general meeting resolutions.

Fund or product-specific reports, they also explain what issues the fund managers have engaged with companies on. They also look at what steps have been taken to resolve issues, over what period of time this has happened, and what the results are. Of course, attributing change of practices or behavior at an investee company to a particular investor's engagement actions is really difficult. Changes often cannot easily be quantified. If there is a positive outcome, it may not be obvious which investor's engagement has prompted this change. However, the disclosures provided by the asset managers at least allow investors and beneficiaries to assess the level of activity with regard to engagement.