Stewardship
A responsible and committed owner
Through active stewardship, we seek to drive positive change across all focus areas, primarily through engagement and voting. The Fund’s stewardship aims both to influence individual companies and to contribute to the development of market practice, policy and standards on issues that are important for long-term value creation. This work is based on the Fund’s Stewardship Policy, and AP2’s expectations of companies are set out through ten principles in our Voting Guidelines.
Active shareholders in different markets
Stewardship is an integrated part of AP2:s role as responsible owner within both listed and unlisted investments.
Swedish equities
The Fund’s Swedish equities team, which applies a fundamental investment approach, works daily with governance-related matters through close and continuous dialogue with portfolio companies.
Global equities
The Fund’s management of global equities is based on a quantitative investment model where the Fund invests in companies through internally constructed indices. Investments in individual companies are therefore not active investment decisions but depend on the chosen index and the weight of each company within it. Consequently, ownership is more diversified, and holdings in individual companies are generally significantly smaller than in the Swedish equity portfolio.
Engagement is focused on companies with high sustainability risk connected to at least one of AP2’s focus areas and is carried out primarily through dialogue in collaboration with other investors, as well as through voting to promote alignment AP2 may also file or support shareholder proposals where relevant. This work is carried out both internally and through the Council on Ethics.
Unlisted holdings
For the Fund’s unlisted holdings, stewardship is an important consideration both prior to investment in due diligence and as well as in ongoing monitoring and dialogues with asset managers during ownership.
Voting for positive impact
AP2 is an active owner at both Swedish and international general meetings. This includes engaging in dialogue with boards and management of portfolio companies prior to and at general meetings, as well as participating through voting. The Fund votes on board appointments and other important matters affecting its investments. As a general rule, AP2 supports company proposals while also clearly communicating its expectations and positions.
Voting in Swedish companies
The Fund holds shares in more than 140 Swedish companies. The objective is for AP2 to vote on all companies’ proposals identified through its selection process, taking into account factors such as the size of the investment, ownership share, the Fund’s ability to influence and other relevant ownership considerations.
AP2 and other institutional investors have maintained constructive dialogue with Swedish public companies over many years, including on issues addressed at general meetings.
Voting in global companies
Voting is an important tool through which AP2 communicates its view on a broad range of issues relating to both corporate governance and sustainability. Over time, the objective is to vote at all companies in the global equity portfolio. Voting is carried out through external service providers and is based on voting guidelines jointly developed by AP2, AP3 and AP4 ahead of each voting season.
AP2 votes at general meetings in more than 40 countries, primarily in the United States, Japan and India. The primary selection criterion for voting is the Fund’s choice of index within its quantitative management, although other criteria are also applied, such as companies identified as having high sustainability risks.