Purpose of Exercising Voting Rights

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited (“SuMi TRUST,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), as a “responsible institutional investor,” considers our exercise of voting rights in connection with entrusted assets (the term “exercise of voting rights” is used in the same sense below) to be one of the most important elements of our stewardship activities, and we will strive to ensure that our exercise of voting rights enhances the corporate value and encourages sustainable growth of investee companies, in order to maximize medium to long-term investment returns for our clients (beneficiaries).

Basic Policy on the Exercise of Voting Rights

  • 1.
    Our exercise of voting rights must intend to contribute to a sustainable growth of investee companies thereby maximizing medium to long-term investment returns for our clients (beneficiaries). Based on investee companies’ conditions and details of engagements with those companies, we will exercise voting rights not only pursuant to the formal criteria for decision making, but after comprehensively considering the extent to which our exercise of voting rights would contribute to sustainable growth of investee companies (and to maximization of medium to long-term investment returns for our clients (beneficiaries)). Furthermore, if a proposal has several interchangeable options, we will make our decision to exercise the voting rights by prioritizing the option that would contribute most to sustainable growth.
  • 2.
    In exercising voting rights, we will encourage investee companies to actively develop appropriate corporate governance systems that respect the interests of shareholders by efficiently utilizing the shareholders’ equity towards sustainable growth and ensuring separation of management supervisory functions and independence of outside officers, among others. In addition, we will encourage the investee companies to conduct corporate activities appropriately by fully considering the environment and the society under the soundly developed corporate governance systems.
  • 3.
    If any act that disregards the interests of shareholders, misconduct or anti-social behavior by an investee company or its management occurs, or its corporate value is damaged due to problems such as poor medium to long-term performance, we will consider such act as a serious issue in the investee company’s corporate governance, and we will exercise voting rights in a way that would improve the investee company’s corporate governance. We require investee companies that have engaged in anti-social behavior to provide a full explanation of the recurrence prevention measures, progress of improvement measures, and efforts towards improvement of its corporate governance, and we will arrive at a decision on the exercise of voting rights based on the explanations.

Management of Conflicts of Interest in the Exercise of Voting Rights

  • 1.
    With the view of prioritizing the interests of clients (beneficiaries), we strictly manage conflicts of interest that could arise in connection with our exercise of voting rights in accordance with the Conflict of Interest Management Rules, the Investment Operation Rules, and other relevant internal rules. Since conflict-of-interest management systems must be independent in particular when exercising voting rights, we have established the “Stewardship Activity Advisory Committee” (the “Advisory Committee”) mainly consisting of outside experts, and we will strive to exercise voting rights with high transparency by respecting the Advisory Committee’s recommendations.
  • 2.
    In order to enhance the visibility of appropriateness of our exercise of voting rights, we will improve the disclosure of information regarding our exercise of voting rights by publishing guidelines for the exercise of voting rights that contain clearly defined criteria to guide decision making or the like.

Structure for the Exercise of Voting Rights

  • 1.
    At SuMi TRUST, the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business exclusively holds all authority relating to our exercise of voting rights, independent from the authority to execute other business activities. In addition, in order for the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business to appropriately exercise voting rights, we have established the Stewardship Meeting that deliberates on our exercise of voting rights, and we have established the Advisory Committee as an advisory body for the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business.
  • 2.
    The Stewardship Meeting is a meeting to deliberate on our exercise of voting rights, engagements, ESG-related activities and various other activities under the Stewardship Code of Japan. In relation to our exercise of voting rights, the Stewardship Meeting will formulate original plans for the establishment, revision, or abolition of the guidelines for exercise of voting rights and original plans to individually exercise voting rights for a proposal not stipulated in the guidelines. The Stewardship Meeting will consist of the chair (General Manager of the Stewardship Development Department), members (General Managers of the Equity Investment Department, the Investment Research Department, and the Index Investment Department), the monitoring unit (General Manager of the Fiduciary Risk Management Department), and the secretariat (the Stewardship Development Department).
  • 3.
    The Advisory Committee is a body established to make recommendations for various activities under the Stewardship Code of Japan to the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business. Regarding our exercise of voting rights, the committee will make recommendations for the establishment, revision, or abolition of the guidelines for the exercise of voting rights, decisions concerning whether to support a proposal not stipulated in these guidelines, appropriateness of interpretation of these guidelines for an individual proposal, and verification and improvement of the decision-making process on the exercise of voting rights on a proposal in connection with which a conflict of interest may occur. The committee will consist of outside advisory members (outside experts) and the General Manager of the Stewardship Development Department as a member, the monitoring unit (General Manager of the Fiduciary Risk Management Department), and the secretariat (the Stewardship Development Department).
  • 4.
    The Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business will make decisions on various matters that, to the maximum extent, respect the Advisory Committee’s recommendations. If the officer receives a recommendation from the Advisory Committee regarding improvement of its exercise of voting rights, the officer will promptly take measures necessary for the correction or improvement that, to the maximum extent, respect the recommendation.
  • 5.
    The operations relating to our exercise of voting rights will be performed as follows:
    • (1)
      the guidelines for exercise of voting rights shall be established, revised, or abolished with the approval of the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business after deliberating at the Stewardship Meeting and after obtaining recommendations from the Advisory Committee;
    • (2)
      a decision to exercise the voting rights for an individual proposal within the scope stipulated in the guidelines for the exercise of voting rights shall be made with the approval of the General Manager of the Stewardship Development Department;
    • (3)
      a decision to exercise the voting rights regarding a proposal that is not stipulated in the guidelines for the exercise of voting rights and that requires individual deliberation shall be made with the approval of the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business after individual deliberation at the Stewardship Meeting and after obtaining the recommendations from the Advisory Committee; and
    • (4)
      the result of exercising the voting rights shall be reported to the Stewardship Meeting and the Officer in charge of the Fiduciary Services Business.

Guidelines for the Execution of Voting Rights

We visualize our judgment through announcing key points of our numerical criteria and qualitative judgment. Please see details below.

Concerning foreign equity, we will exercise judgment based on the circumstances for each country, specifically, its economic, political, social and historical foundation and how it has shaped the law, commercial practice and corporate governance. Please see details below.

Results of Voting

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