Institutional Investors Votes on Corporate Externalities: the Case of Two Emblematic Investors

Marie BRIÈRE * Responsable, Centre de recherche aux investisseurs, Amundi ; professeur associé, Université Paris-Dauphine ; chercheur associé, Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Sébastien POUGET ** University Professor, Toulouse School of Economics, University of Toulouse Capitole (TSM-Research). Contact: sebastien.pouget@tse-fr.eu.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the National Agency for Research (ANR) under the Investments of the Future program, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010, and support from the Initiative for Effective Corporate Climate Action and the FDIR Initiative.

Loredana URECHE-RANGAU ** Professeur des Universités, Université de Picardie Jules Verne. Contact : loredana.ureche@u-picardie.fr.

Do institutional investors engage with companies on corporate externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions? We study voting at shareholders meetings by two emblematic global investors: BlackRock, a major asset manager, and the Norway Fund, a responsible sovereign wealth fund. Our data cover 2014 and include the two institutions' votes on 35,382 resolutions at 2,796 corporations across the world. Both of these so-called universal owners oppose management significantly more often on externality than on financial issues. The Norway Fund is more active on shareholders resolutions concerning externalities related to environmental and social issues rather than governance issues. The difference between the two investors' voting behaviour is larger when we focus on resolutions related to greenhouse gas emissions, a clearly identified externality.