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Home > Equity Ownership Services > What we do

• Overview
• Who we are
• Our approach
• What we do
• Value creation
• Voting disclosure
• Private equity
• Commentary

Equity Ownership Services

What we do

Background

Hermes Equity Ownership Services has been a world leader in the promotion of better stewardship of companies in which pension funds are invested for nearly two decades. Its first corporate governance policy was created in 1990 since then it has been republished many times, the latest version as Hermes Corporate Governance Principles.

• HEOS represents its clients interests in engagements with the companies in which they invest on strategic, environmental, social and governance matters.
• HEOS also contributes to the development of policy on corporate governance and related matters on its clients' behalf, in order to protect and enhance the value of their shareholdings over the longer term.
• in 2009, HEOS developed the first private-equity focused responsible investment service, serving both limited partners (investors) and general partners (private equity houses). For more information see Private Equity

Active dialogue

Whenever Hermes or its clients vote against the recommendations of a company's management, it's done with very open channels of communication, HEOS will contact the company by telephone or letter to explain the voting decision and encourage improvements. All discussions with companies, whether about strategic, governance, social or environmental issues, are focussed on their long term financial performance, and are monitored on an ongoing basis.

Making a difference

In the interest of promoting good governance in business, Hermes is involved in consultation with regulators, governments and key decision and policy makers around the world.

Hermes strongly believes in and advocates collaborative action. As such, not only are we members of a number of industry bodies and initiatives around the world, but we have indeed been the founders of many of them. Examples are:

UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)
International Corporate Governance Forum (ICGN)
Global Institutional Governance Forum (GIGN)
Corporate Governance Forum
SRI Forum / Responsible Investors Network
Performance Pay Group
UN Commission on Trade and Development
Council of Institutional Investors (CII)
Asian Corporate Governance Association
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
UN Environment Finance Inititative