Amec gets ready for the 2021 Pre-Proxy season

Amec has recently started one of its main annual activities: the pre-proxy season project. This consists of a series of actions and meetings between investors in preparation for investees’ annual general meetings (AGMs). The pre-proxy season offers our members an opportunity to come together and debate about companies’ different aspects, such as strategy, requests to add topics to the AGM’s agenda, board members’ nominations, and evaluation of companies’ ESG practices, among others. This kind of collective engagement is common in countries other than Brazil and is usually associated with stewardship practices.
“We aim to expand investors’ ability to engage with each other and promote a governance and stewardship culture in the country. Several investors would have limited influence on companies if acting isolated and become stronger in coordination with others,” says Fábio Coelho, Amec’s Executive President. Amec’s Technical Committee has recently hosted a meeting to start off the project and Amec is now inquiring investors about which companies they are more interested in engaging about. This initiative will bring together asset management firms and pension funds with common interests.
Every year, Amec collects information on the companies that make up the IBrX-100 index and organizes meetings for investors to evaluate the ones that attracted most interest. “In the past year, we had many participants from Brazil, as well as the USA and Europe. This year, we expect the initiative to have an even broader reach,” says Mr. Coelho.