Stewardship in AQTION: How the World’s Largest Investors Handle Their Assets

AQTION, leveraging its proprietary database powered by SquareWell Partners, published its second review on how the world’s largest 65 investors (hereafter referred to as the “Top 65”) are evaluating governance and sustainability issues and stewarding their portfolios. Together these investors (including some of the largest Assets Managers, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and Pension Funds) have nearly USD 91 trillion in Assets Under Management (AUM). See a summary post of the findings from last year’s study.

In this year’s analysis of the Top 65, the composition of the universe remains almost identical with the previous year, with only one change: Voya Investment Management (Asset Manager, US) replacing Baillie Gifford (Asset Manager, UK). To maintain comparability, the study retained the same factors used in the previous year’s assessment, while also incorporating new factors designed to capture investor sentiment on emerging topics of interest, such as artificial intelligence.

Notably, this year’s analysis looked athow these influential investors voted on high-profile situations. This includes, for example, the 2024 board contest at Walt Disney and the controversial approval of Elon Musk’s multi-billion dollar pay package at Tesla. These real-world examples offer valuable context to understand how the Top 65 investors are exercising their influence on critical corporate governance matters.

The full report is available here. Below, we highlight some of the key takeaways from AQTION’s review of the stewardship activities of the Top 65 investors, with selected points explored in greater depth.

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