Kagiso Asset Management became a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) because of our commitment to act in the best long-term interests of our investors.

The PRI were developed to reflect the increasing relevance of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues to investment practices. The aim is to help investors consider ESG issues and investment decision-making and ownership practices, thereby improving long-term returns to beneficiaries.

We believe that ESG issues can affect the performance of investment portfolios to varying degrees, and that applying these principles may better align our investors with the broader objectives of society.

We have incorporated the PRI into our investment decision-making process to the benefit of our investors and by adhering to the following:

• We are committed to principles of good corporate governance and to ensuring that the companies in which we invest adhere to the same principles.
• We determine whether the interests of our investors would be best served by avoiding positions in companies that are considered to be poorly governed, by becoming more actively involved in these companies through discussion with management, by making our views public, by exercising our proxy voting rights or through any other means in order to enhance shareholder value.
• It must never be our intention to become involved in the management of any company’s operations or to be involved on a long-term basis, and potential conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest must be avoided at all costs.
• We regularly report on progress achieved towards the implementation of the principles.

A detailed document stating our position on corporate activity, governance and shareholder activism is available on request.

Proxy voting

All of our voting records are available on request.