Spanish custodian Cecabank has selected Broadridge’s proxy voting solution in order to meet the updated Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II).
The move to adopt Broadridge’s solution comes as the Spanish government is due to sign off its transposition to make SRD II a compulsory legal requirement in Spain.
The Directive aims to improve relations between shareholders and listed companies at the European level, making them more fluid, transparent and efficient.
In general, SRD II allows more transparency into shareholders, regulates the transmission of information between the company and shareholders, and encourages the involvement of shareholders in the corporate governance of listed companies, facilitating the exercise of their voting rights.
Likewise, it obliges institutional investors and asset managers to develop and make public an engagement policy with which they must be consistent in the exercise of such voting rights.
“We are extremely pleased to have chosen Broadridge as our strategic provider for SRD II,” said Luis Francisco Jiménez Aragón, head of securities custody and settlement at Cecabank. “As an established global market leader for investor communications, we know that they [Broadridge] have the critical mass, deep expertise and reputation for service excellence to ensure the timely deployment of a highly efficient solution.
“We are very well-prepared and already in live operation, ahead of the Spanish authorities’ transposition deadline, and helping to drive higher standards of governance and transparency for our clients and other constituents throughout the proxy voting lifecycle.”
Broadridge has heavily invested in its SRD II solutions, earning an award from Global Custodian in 2020 for innovation in the field. Since then, the FinTech provider has gone on to launch Broadridge Proxy Policies & Insights (PPI) Data, providing an open data-feed of proxy voting information and analytics.
The platform will leverage machine learning services from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide broker-dealers, institutional investors, mutual funds, retail investors, regulators and academics with access to over five million proxy voting data points from more than 85,000 meeting agendas and a wide coverage of regulatory documents.