Tumelo has expanded its voting service to institutional investors, with Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) announced as the first fund manager to provide trustees with expression of wish via Tumelo's platform.

The update, initially aimed at defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, will enable pension scheme trustees to monitor and regularly engage with their asset managers on stewardship issues concerning assets held by the investment managers.

The development was driven by an increasing public and member interest in the underlying holdings of their pensions, as well as the direction of new regulation, which requires pension trustees to have better oversight of the voting implementation process.

The voting services can support expression of wish or pass-through voting.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has already partnered with Tumelo, and is the first fund manager to provide NatWest trustees with expression of wish via Tumelo’s voting platform.

The expression of wish digital service will enable trustees to identify the environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues that matter most to their members and encourage direct dialogue between trustees, members and the LGIM investment stewardship team.

After an initial three-month period, LGIM is expected to roll out the service to its broader DC trustee client base and other interested LGIM clients.

Tumelo is also in advanced discussions with other asset management firms who wish to better engage with investors

Tumelo CEO, Georgia Stewart, commented: “We expect this technology to become critical for asset managers to use in relationship management with their many clients on stewardship issues. It will help them win new clients and it will strengthen relationships with existing institutional clients who care about stewardship.”

L&G co-head of DC, Stuart Murphy, added: “Expression of wish makes feedback seamless and will support pension scheme trustees with their additional regulatory reporting and decision-making responsibilities in an easy, navigable way.

"Most exciting is that it allows for a more direct dialogue with the LGIM investment stewardship team, ensuring they can feed in members’ views into their voting and engagement process.”

Natwest Group DC Scheme trustee, Alison Robb, also suggested that the service will allow the trustees to engage more closely with LGIM’s stewardship team and understand how they are voting in practice.

"This will help us develop our voting policies and communicate with our pension scheme members who are increasingly engaged with what companies are in their pension but also the issues that they care most about," she stated.

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