Voting
Voting
Companies’ general meetings are generally a good opportunity for the PFA to assert its influence. Voting at companies’ annual general meetings is the most direct and regulated tool that shareholders possess when it comes to influencing a company’s management team. PFA therefore monitors the management of the companies we invest in and uses our voting rights to ensure that companies are on a path of sustainable value creation. In a number of companies, PFA is in continuous touch with the management team to ensure this development takes place.
We vote at the general meetings of listed Danish and foreign companies in the products ‘PFA Invests’, ‘PFA Flexible’ and funds that PFA manages in ‘You Invest’. In particular, we prioritise translating our ownership into influence, e.g. by submitting and/or voting for shareholder proposals, voting against board members, physical attendance or publishing voting rationales at the general meetings where the importance of our engagement is greatest. This prioritising is based on an overall assessment of the company’s exposure to sustainability risks, the size of PFA’s investment and PFA’s opportunities for influence.
In connection with voting at general meetings, PFA follows a number of guidelines, which you can read more about in PFA's Guidelines for Active Ownership
Voting in 2024 and physical attendance at the annual general meeting of TotalEnergies
In terms of voting at annual general meetings, in 2024 we have generally prioritised supporting critical shareholder proposals that can put companies on a greener course and lead to more long-term sustainable business models. This has also been the case with TotalEnergies, which is the only remaining oil and gas company in our portfolio. PFA physically attended TotalEnergies’ general meeting in May 2022, 2023 and 2024 to push for further specification and acceleration of the plans the company has put forward for its green transition. In 2024, PFA played a special role in this, as we were selected to lead the dialogue with TotalEnergies as a co-lead under the framework of the Climate Action 100+ investor initiative, which includes around 600 of the world’s largest investors. We do not agree with everything that TotalEnergies does, but it is still our assessment that the opportunities for green progress are greater with us than without us. 2024 has shown that the green agenda needs more – not fewer – investors who speak up for climate. We see this not least in the United States, where there is increasing resistance to climate investments and the ESG agenda in general.
In 2024, PFA used its influence as a shareholder to vote at approximately 402 general meetings on topics such as good company governance, the green transition, diversity and a focus on ESG metrics in remuneration. General meetings are prioritized based on the size of the investments as well as specific ESG-related issues and themes that we focus on. The companies whose general meetings PFA voted on in 2024 account for about 95 per cent of the equity portfolio’s CO2e footprint.
Below you can see our voting record at annual general meetings.
