Our 2025 AGM attendance reaffirmed the strategic value of engaging directly with company leadership, providing a visible platform to raise critical issues and signal investor priorities. AGMs play a vital role in our five-tier engagement strategy, as detailed in our 2025 stewardship plan.
The team at EQ Investors (EQ) attended ten AGMs during the season, aligning our actions with broader strategic themes such as fair access to medicine, decarbonisation, human rights and ethical AI, ensuring that each engagement addressed financially material issues for the respective firms.
The following video interview helps bring the approach to life, with some examples outlined below.
Public health and nutrition
We attended the AGM of Tesco, where we, in collaboration with ShareAction, pressed the board for enhanced healthy food sales targets, reflecting a long-term commitment to improving public health outcomes through responsible retail practices.
Equitable access to healthcare
In the pharmaceutical sector, EQ engaged with GSK and AstraZeneca, both recognised leaders in access to medicine, to encourage greater transparency and sharing of best practice, particularly regarding the affordability and accessibility of new treatments in low-income countries. These interactions aimed to reinforce the business case for equitable access and to maintain momentum on sector-wide improvements.
As part of the Access to Medicine SDG 3 collaborative investors initiative, our AGM questions re-enforced the wider initiative’s engagement goals through this new channel.
National Living Wage
As an accredited living wage employer ourselves, EQ also supported this standard at AGMs this year. At Kingfisher (the owners of B&Q and Screwfix) and M&S we requested wider adoption of living wages or more detailed reporting on this topic, to bring attention to any shortcomings.
Banks’ climate focus
EQ has been engaging on banks and their role in climate change through financing activities for the last three years now. To enhance the impact, this year EQ signed investor statements that were read at three UK-based banks’ AGMs in collaboration with other investors.
On the same topic, we attended the AGM of Standard Chartered over three consecutive years, showing how this can fit in with escalation of stewardship efforts. This year, the focus was on refining the bank’s green financing targets and addressing human rights concerns linked to a high-profile energy project in Mozambique.
EQ’s recommendation for the implementation of a direct grievance mechanism for affected communities, inspired by practices in Australian banks, was met with receptiveness from Standard Chartered, highlighting the tangible impact of informed shareholder activism.
Long term value
These outcomes highlight the value of AGM activism as a complementary tool in the stewardship toolkit. We believe it is an effective way to influence key decision-makers within a business
In an age where noise from investors can be increasingly polarised when it comes to material sustainability issues, we want to show those topics are still relevant and material to our case for driving long term value for our clients.