We recognise that part of our fiduciary duty to our clients is the responsible investment of the funds we manage on their and their own clients’ behalf. In ensuring the sound stewardship of our investors’ capital we seek not only to ensure that our approach closely aligns us with the values of our clients but also balances the expectations of our shareholders and all the other stakeholders of Man Group.

We believe that we must be transparent about the implications of climate change on our business. We have clearly set out actions that we are taking to manage environmental risks: we actively seek to minimise our environmental footprint and have defined our pathway to net zero emissions in our global workplaces by 2030 and within our investment portfolios by 2050.

Man Group’s Stewardship Team (the ‘Team’) is responsible for engagement activities across Man Group and collaborates in several investor initiatives. The team assist portfolio managers in their engagement endeavors and provides an expert, dedicated, perspective on corporate governance and ESG issues during company interactions.

Additionally, the team oversees the proxy voting process and manages the relationship with our proxy service provider Glass Lewis. On critical holdings, the Team conducts an extra level of analysis of the third-party research and recommendations, taking into consideration relevant information and company-specific factors. The Team is also responsible for reviewing any voting discrepancies or operational issues identified by the voting reconciliation process.

Underlining the importance of responsible investment to Man Group we have a number of centralised committees and teams at the firm dedicated to Responsible Investment.

These resources include:

• RI Committee
• RI team: Overseen by the RI senior leadership team
• Stewardship team

The RI Committee oversees and reviews the implementation of all RI policies and processes across the Man Group’s investment engines as well as the firm’s stewardship capabilities through the Stewardship and Active Ownership Committee. The RI Committee is composed of senior representatives from across Man Group’s businesses in order to provide a broader perspective across asset classes and investment strategies. This not only underlines the strategic importance of responsible investment to Man Group’s corporate philosophy; it also ensures that RI initiatives are organised and managed from the highest level.

The RI Committee promotes an internal culture that insists on holding ourselves to the highest standards of Corporate Social Responsibility (‘CSR’). The committee reinforces the firm’s CSR commitment and works with multiple stakeholders to assess our ethical and sustainable business practices.

The RI team are responsible for the day to day implementation of the Man Group RI policy. The team works to ensure investment managers across Man Group’s investment engines are provided with the tools and education in order to integrate the best practices in responsible investment that are most relevant to their strategy.

RI senior leadership lead the RI Team, including Rob Furdak, CIO for ESG as well as Jason Mitchell and Steven Desmyter, Co-Heads of Responsible Investment. The RI Team and Committee are overseen by Sandy Rattray, CIO of Man Group and Robyn Grew, Group COO and General Counsel, Man Group. With the June 2021 announcement that Sandy Rattray is retiring at the end of the year, Robyn Grew will assume overall for our ESG efforts.

The in-house Stewardship team oversee all proxy voting and engagement activities at a firm level, including the application of an enhanced ESG voting policy that applies specific overlays that represent the core principle of good governance. Furthermore, the team designs and supports firm-wide engagement programmes in order to maximise sustainable long term value creation across the Man Group’s assets.

Man Group takes a diversified approach to Responsible Investment across its investment engines and recognises the importance of a responsible approach across all asset classes and investment strategies. Each of our investment engines applies the best practices of RI in the way that is most relevant to their fields of research through a variety of different methods.

• Stewardship: Enhancing our values and interests of our clients’ assets through voting and engagement
• ESG Factors: Considering and/or applying ESG criteria in the investment decision-making process
• Activities/Education: Participating, promoting and educating RI within the investment community

We employ a formalised process that quantifies the degree of responsible investment focus for each of Man Group’s funds. We offer our investment managers proprietary tools to monitor and manage E, S and G factors. We also maintain a list of companies whose securities are ineligible for inclusion in our portfolios. We thereby seek to ensure a clear and consistent approach to responsible investment across our entire range of strategies, and to inform how we deliver on our approach to ESG matters in a manner that can meet the broad palette of preferences expressed by our clients.

The execution of voting rights is a key element of Man Group’s active ownership approach. We carry out our fiduciary duty by voting at shareholder meetings and expressing our support for (or concern with) management and shareholder resolutions.

Man Group’s Stewardship Team oversees all proxy voting activity at the firm level. Our voting policy seeks to encourage good corporate governance practices and promote ESG standards, whilst taking into consideration both company specific circumstances and broader market differences.

• Our ‘A Sustainable Future’ podcast, hosted by Jason Mitchell, Man Group’s Co-Head of Responsible Investment, was joint winner of the ‘ESG Initiative of the Year’ (Environmental Finance’s Sustainable Investment Awards, 2019).
• Best ESG/RI Management Company (Hedge Fund Review’s European Performance Awards, 2018).
• Our Stewardship efforts have been recognized by ShareAction, in their report, ‘Voting Matters 2020’, as one of the leading asset managers in supporting shareholder resolutions on climate and social issues. We received an A rating in our most recent PRI report for Active Ownership.
• Man Group’s “Big Green Short” article, was Highly Commended in the Best ESG Paper 2020 category for the Savvy Investor Awards 2020.
• Man Group’s RI team was a contributor to the CFA Institute paper that won the Best ESG Paper 2020 category titled “Climate Change Analysis in the Investment Process”.