Christie says that in 2021, BlackRock clocked up more than 3,500 engagements with companies, and voted at a total of 17,000 AGMs, on over 164,000 proposals.
To achieve this level of engagement at scale, BlackRock’s 70-strong investment stewardship team operates in more than 30 countries and 70 cities across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, combining the benefits of its global reach with local knowledge, service and relationships.
“Having not only a team with wide coverage, but also deep coverage means we can stay engaged with companies all year round, not just during peak proxy season,” says Isaza. “And it means we can stay informed about emerging trends and policy developments, globally.”
Stewardship of index holdings
BlackRock’s stewardship approach is consistent across its funds, active and index, which might come as a surprise to some advisers and their clients.
“Often, the perception is that index fund managers can’t do much or are ‘sleepy’. But that couldn’t be further from the truth,” according to Christie.
Take BlackRock’s MyMap range, a series of UK-domiciled, daily-dealing multi-asset funds, investing in a diversified portfolio of iShares ETFs and index funds that have a three-year track record. This “one stop shop” for financial advisers was expanded in March this year.
“We launched two new ESG funds, the MyMap 3 Select ESG and MyMap 7 Select ESG. They joined the MyMap 5 Select ESG, so we have a mini range of ESG funds now within MyMap, all at the same 17 basis points price point as the core fund range,” explains Christie.
“You’re not paying more for ESG – we don’t think you should. In addition to sitting within the same risk band as their core non-ESG funds, they also have a specific carbon reduction target.
“Because the range invests in all of our ETF and index funds, they get the full benefit of the investment stewardship team – all of the voting they do and all of their engagement activity.”
In an industry teeming with jargon and acronyms, Christie believes there’s an opportunity for asset managers to remove complexity from the sustainability conversation.
“As we bring more simplicity to the ESG conversation, which the MyMap funds do, that will help advisers make sense of all this for their clients as well.”