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 2023
During 2023, we voted on a total of 5,294 items covering 669 shareholder meetings globally. In Canada, we voted on 424 items in 37 meetings.
Outside of Canada, we voted on 1,108 items in the U.S. and 3,762 items outside of North America at 509 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.
