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SEC rules to call on hedge funds, endowments to disclose votes

Posted On: Sep. 29, 2021 10:32 AM CST

SEC

(Reuters) — The top U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday will propose requiring large hedge funds and endowments to disclose how they vote on executive pay, bringing this clutch of influential investors in line with other top funds that have made their pay votes public for a decade.

The changes proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission will also include mandates for investors to provide more details about how share lending affects proxy voting and to make certain reports machine-readable, an SEC official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Together the changes from the Democratic-led agency are meant to bring more transparency to shareholder annual meetings, partly by implementing rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010.

If approved by a majority of the five-member commission on Wednesday, the rule changes would be subject to a 60-day public comment period before further action.

Among S&P 500 company CEOs average total pay rose 52% to $12.18 million in 2020 from $8 million a decade earlier, according to compensation consultant Farient Advisors.

Among other things Dodd-Frank mandated shareholders get the chance to cast so-called “say-on-pay” advisory votes on executive compensation, which have put a focus on CEO pay at many corporate annual meetings for the past decade.

The votes, combined with the disclosures that big mutual fund companies have filed since 2004 via Form N-PX, had already brought scrutiny to the biggest asset managers.

Top asset managers still overwhelmingly back executive pay, according to new data from researcher Insightia showing that during the 12 months ended June 30 three of the largest fund companies each supported management on pay about 95% of the time, roughly the same as the prior period.