GGIC Growth: Major Investors Back Campaign Challenging Corporate Governance “Misconceptions”

4 December 2025

By Jack Grogan-Fenn

Investors with more than U$245 trillion in AUM have thrown their weight behind a new report from the Governance for Growth Investor Campaign (GGIC) challenging "misconceptions" about their role in capital markets.

The GGIC’s policy vision document published this week seeks to “challenge misconceptions about corporate governance and its role in capital markets” and show that strong governance is a “catalyst for sustainable economic growth” rather than being a barrier. The group has also announced four new major supporters – the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), Pensions UK, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) – whose members collectively represent more than U$245 trillion.

Key Client Takeaways:

Strong Governance as a Growth Catalyst

• The GGIC challenges the misconception that corporate governance is a barrier to growth. The campaign instead asserts that good governance enhances transparency, accountability and resilience, supporting long-term value creation.

Investor Priorities and Policy Requests

• The campaign emphasised that long-term investors value shareholder rights and accountability and has called for greater representation of UK capital allocators in policymaking, addressing structural fragmentation in markets and improving investor access to stewardship tools.

Managing Modernisation

• The GGIC advocates for modernising AGMs, but stresses that in-person participation and transparency in voting for companies with DCSS are vital. Recent research by Minerva Analytics has flagged the growing trend of virtual-only AGMs and concerns over relaxed listing rules related to DCSS could impact governance standards.

The GGIC’s policy vision paper sets out three facts around governance: that corporate governance standards are positive for company performance; that governance standards do not damage capital markets by driving companies to list elsewhere; and that long-term investors value shareholder rights and accountability.

A survey carried out by the GGIC and Opinium found that 61% of scheme investment decision-makers said that shareholder rights and investor protections mechanisms are “very important” when making investment decisions. Additionally, only one of 53 UK-headquartered or UK-focused companies that moved their listing to the US between 2018 and 2025 cited corporate governance as a reason for their re-listing. However, only 36% of international and domestic scheme investment decisionmakers surveyed felt that the UK government listens to the needs of pension schemes and long-term investors.

As such, the document makes four core policy requests to help stimulate the strengthening and growth of governance in the UK. These are: giving UK capital allocators more of a seat at the policy table; addressing structural fragmentation and artificial divides in the UK market to support companies as they scale and mature; ensuring investors have appropriate access, information, and tools to effectively exercise their stewardship responsibilities; and celebrating the UK’s status as a capital ‘destination of choice’.

To meet the third of the four requests, the GGIC has called for the modernisation of AGMs to be undertaken in a way that allows for continued in-person attendance and that UK companies with multiple classes of stock to disclose their vote tallies on a class-by-class basis. Virtual-only AGMs and dual-class share structures (DCSS) are increasingly prevalent issues in the UK, as well as in other countries.

The GGIC was created in July with the primary objective of promoting the importance of effective corporate governance standards and investor rights mechanisms in strengthening UK capital markets and companies. As reported by Minerva Analytics, at launch the campaign was backed by UK pension schemes that had collectively invested more than £60 billion (U$79.8 billion) within the country on the behalf of 11 million savers.
 
The campaign is chaired by British pension scheme Railpen, with other members including Brightwell, Brunel Pension Partnership, The Church of England Pensions Board and the People’s Pension. It has now also been backed by investor organisations including the U$90 trillion ICGN, the U$128 trillion PRI, the £19 trillion UKSIF and the £2 trillion Pensions UK.  Minerva Analytics is one of the ICGN’s more than 300 members spread across over 40 countries according to the network’s 2026 Membership report. We are also members of Pensions UK and UKSIF.
 
The GGIC has been launched at a time when the UK government is pushing pension schemes to invest domestically to catalyse growth within the country, increase international competitiveness and combat declining listings on the stock exchange. The UK government’s growth drive has included confirming a March 2026 deadline for local authority pension funds to join one of six local government pension scheme pools as part of its final Pensions Investment Review report released in May.

Last July, Minerva Analytics reported on updates made to the UK’s listing regime by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to streamline the rules with the aim of boosting growth and innovation. A controversial element of these changes was the relaxation of requirements around DCSS to make the listing regime that is more accessible for UK companies, which was covered in Minerva Analytics’ “The Dual-Class Debate: Are Sunset Provisions The Solution?” report released last month. DCSS risks severely restricting shareholders’ ability to affect change at investee firms, having their voice heard through voting on shareholder proposals due to uneven rights and effectively holding companies to account.

Meanwhile, as highlighted in Minerva Analytics’ 2025 Proxy Season Review published in December, just 2.6% of the companies in the Solactive United Kingdom 250 and 100 indices held virtual AGMs. However, given that virtual-only AGMs are more prominent in the EU (15%) and are the predominant form of meeting in the US (77%), there are fears that the UK could follow suit and increasingly adopt solely-online AGMs. Whilst virtual-only meetings offer convenience and lower costs, they also pose significant risks to shareholder rights, including the ability to participate by asking questions, challenge management or propose motions.

“Good corporate governance is vital for sustainable economic growth,” GGIC stated in the document. “It supports vibrant capital markets, driving stronger financial performance, enhancing shareholder value, and improving innovation and productivity. By promoting transparency and accountability, good governance - including effective shareholder rights mechanisms - also help prevent costly mistakes and value-destructive decisions, creating a more resilient and innovative UK capital market and economy that works for companies, investors and everyday savers alike.”

There are many who are in favour of easing listing rules, though some stress that this needs to be done in a responsible manner that preserves transparency and governance standards. The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) last week published a research paper on IPOs and new listings, which assessed the factors associated with IPO activity across 79 global stock exchanges from 2002 to 2024. Erfan Ghofrani, Economist at The WFE and the paper’s co-author, said that “easing overly strict listing requirements can increase market participation and capital raised, so long as transparency, market resilience, and governance standards remain intact.”

The report stated that relaxing listing requirements has a “statistically significant and positive impact on IPO activity, both in terms of the number of listings and the capital raised”, as well as highlighting that more stringent listing requirements means that only larger firms can afford to list. However, it also flagged that listing requirements more stringent has no significant effect on the number of IPOs and, while not stimulating activity, not discouraging IPO activity. It also noted that more listing rules can “serve as a credible signal of market quality, attracting larger and potentially more established firms to the public market”.

Minerva’s blog focuses on the latest developments in ESG investing and stewardship. Minerva is a global provider of sustainable stewardship solutions with over 25 years of expertise. Minerva empowers investors by providing essential tools, including ESG research and data, enabling them to navigate the intricate landscape of stewardship and proxy voting, whilst ensuring their decisions are well-informed and aligned with sustainable principles.

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