Proxy Voting
OMERS owns shares in numerous publicly traded companies around the world. Share ownership carries with it important rights and responsibilities, including the right to vote shares at company meetings. The proxy vote is an important asset of a pension fund. OMERS has a fiduciary duty to obtain the highest returns for plan beneficiaries within acceptable risk limits. In accordance with its fiduciary duty, OMERS exercises its ownership rights by voting proxies diligently in a manner intended to optimize the long-term value of its investments.
Proxy votes in 2022
During 2022, we voted on a total of 6,229 items covering 737 shareholder meetings globally. In Canada, we voted on 454 items in 36 meetings.
Outside of Canada, we voted on 1,151 items in the U.S. and 4,624 items outside of North America at 573 shareholder meetings.
Proxy Voting Guidelines
Our proxy voting guidelines are intended to guide OMERS and to assist the directors and management of companies in which we invest, as well as others, to know in advance how we are likely to vote on issues of importance.
