State Street Corp is taking a step forward in giving retail fund investors more control over their investments. By the end of 2024, the firm’s asset-management arm, State Street Global Advisors, aims to allow investors in $1.5 trillion worth of its index equity assets to influence how their proxy votes will be cast at corporate annual meetings. This move will give investors in products including exchange-traded funds the ability to choose among various voting policies offered by Institutional Shareholder Services.
Other big index fund providers BlackRock Inc and Vanguard Group are also moving to give their clients more control, though not yet to as many individual investors. Together the three firms manage some $20 trillion.
Giving away voting rights could blunt the criticism and distinguish State Street products. Yie-Hsin Hung, CEO of State Street Global Advisors, said that this move is “yet another innovation that amplifies our ongoing mission to democratize investing.”
State Street aims to offer individual voting for funds including the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF, and targets November for certain products. However, investors in funds including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF will not have access to the voting option due to their unit investment trust structure.