FRC announces 2023 Stewardship Code signatories

February 15, 2023

The UK's Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has announced another increase in the number of signatories to the 2020 UK Stewardship Code. Today, it announced an increase of 19 signatories.

The FRC received 105 applications at the end of October 2022, of which 88 were successful, taking the total number of signatories to 254, up from 235 in September last year. This includes 179 asset managers, 58 asset owners and 17 service providers. The additional signatories bring the total assets under management of the list to £46.4tn, up from £40.7tn.

These updated list of signatories accounts for £40.7tn assets under management, up from £46.4tn in September last year.

Though Minerva has been a long-standing signatory of the FRC's UK 2020 Stewardship code, and provides Stewardship Code alignment services to many UK companies, this year it decided to defer its renewal to the next cycle due in April 2023.

In January 2023, Minerva announced it had been acquired by Solactive, the market-leading Index and ETF provider. In preparing for this merger, Minerva has been actively working with Solactive to enhance each others ESG offerings.

Following the completion of the acquisition, the companies will continue to operate independently and partner on an arm’s length basis in the fields of data science and technology.

https://www.old.manifest.co.uk/minerva-analytics-acquired-by-solactive/

With many changes underway within Minerva, CEO Sarah Wilson made the decision Minerva would be better off deferring our re-application to the UK Stewardship Code.

Reflecting on the decision, Wilson stated:

Whilst Minerva will continue to provide best-in-class stewardship code alignment services to our clients, completing our own stewardship application will be delayed until work concerning the acquisition had been finalised.

Minerva is now preparing its reapplication to the UK Stewardship Code for the FRC's April submission window.

Commenting on the Acquistion by Solactive, Wilson added:

“Solactive and Minerva share the philosophy that there is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for clients, who all hold different investment beliefs. This idea manifests itself in the ‘custom as standard’ scalable solutions Minerva has developed over the years for our clients, powered by deep stewardship expertise and backed by expert data and leading-edge technology. The whole team is delighted to be a part of the Solactive family and is excited to embark on this next stage of our journey ahead together.”