Foreign companies

Since 2008, to improve the governance of its foreign investments, and in cooperation with the First, Third and Fourth AP Funds, the Second AP Fund has operated a joint electronic voting platform, based on the AP funds’ governance policies. Most issues are managed automatically via the voting platform, with the exception of matters such as remuneration issues, which are forwarded to the funds for individual assessment. Each fund decides individually as to how it will vote.

On foreign markets the Fund mainly votes in the following eleven countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. The criteria for determining the companies in which the Fund should exercise its voting rights derive mainly from the MSCI global index. There are other criteria too, such as when the Fund is engaged in a dialogue on a specific issue with a company and/or when the Fund has submitted a shareholder proposal for consideration by the AGM. In 2020, AP2 exercised its vote at 1 006 foreign AGMs. The Fund employs an external party for the practical voting process and submits a written vote (proxy voting) using the electronic voting platform.

Every month, the Fund publishes a detailed account on its website stating its global voting at foreign companies’ AGMs.