Stimmrechtsverhalten von institutionellen Anlegern, insbesondere Pensionskassen
The initiative against excessive remuneration gives additional powers to the general meeting of shareholders, in particular where the salaries of mangers are concerned. A less known novelty is that it also obliges some of the institutional investors, Swiss pension funds, to exercise their rights as shareholders in the “interests of their members” and to publicly communicate the manner in which these voting rights were used. This article discusses the interpretation difficulties connected with the concepts of interests of the members and with voting abstention. It also examines the way in which the pension funds have implemented these new obligations by means of guidelines that cover the exercise of voting rights and how this is communicated to the general public. It appears that pension funds have (and must have) a completely normal shareholder behaviour. Put in perspective, these new obligations on pension funds reveal a certain confusion between the various interests at stake,…