Booster’s latest stewardship report outlines some of Booster’s engagement and voting activities on behalf of our investors. Through these activities Booster aims to help encourage improvement in certain corporate behaviours in select companies our funds invest in, on issues like sustainability, climate change, and director appointments and remuneration.
Booster’s approach to stewardship is guided by our environmental, social and governance (ESG) assessments. You can find out more about how we engage with select companies we invest in here.
Highlights from the 2024-2025 financial year include Booster casting nearly five thousand proxy votes, across 360 meetings.
Highlights include Booster lending its weight to vote against Australia’s Woodside Energy Group’s previous climate action plan as it lacked detail and relied too heavily on carbon offsets.
After a 58.4% vote against the plan at Woodside Energy’s AGM in August 2024, the company’s board has gone back to the drawing board to come up with a plan that has more tangible actions to meet Paris Agreement commitments.
Booster also supported a Tesla stockholder proposal to reduce director terms to one year and for simple majority voting provisions. Booster felt this was an appropriate request given concerns around Tesla’s current corporate structure, and our general support for eliminating the requirement for super majorities on decisions. These shareholder proposals were secured with a 54% vote in favour.
Closer to home, Booster was part of a 33.8% shareholder vote against a Mainfreight board resolution to pay $120,000 to a retiring director as it wouldn’t benefit shareholders.
This was one of multiple director remuneration proposals we did not support. While we don’t always win on such votes, we aim to advocate on behalf of investors for what we consider to be the best possible outcomes for them.
Besides voting, Booster also engages with companies alongside some of our partners, such as global equity manager Fisher Investments. Recently these have included:
Booster also joined with several other New Zealand asset managers to collectively engage with some NZ-listed companies on climate issues.
You can download Booster’s 2024/25 Stewardship report here.
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Booster strives to be an active steward on behalf of the investors in our funds. We may selectively engage with companies we have a directly managed investment in and aim to exercise proxy votes for such investments where possible. Where we use external managers to manage parts of Booster portfolios they may engage with companies and exercise proxy votes on our behalf, and we regularly engage with them, including at times to understand and influence such activities. For more information including on proxy voting activities exercised by Booster, please see our Approach to Stewardship.
Booster Investment Management Limited is the issuer of the Booster Innovation Scheme, Booster Innovation Fund. Product Disclosure Statements are available at www.booster.co.nz.