The CEO of Trillium, one of the world’s first ESG-focused funds managers, has big plans to energise shareholder activism Down Under.
Unlike the United States, where the size of financial markets can preserve a degree of distance between activist shareholders and their targets, Australian activist shareholders may face the challenge of smaller circles, Mr Patsky said.“What does it mean to be an activist shareholder? I sit down with [companies] regularly and talk to them.”Activist shareholders need to ensure they’re setting out metrics for progress and plans for escalation if expectations aren’t met, he added.
Investment management giant Perpetual, acquired Trillium for $54 million in 2020, and in April this year, Trillium said it would create a new director of international shareholder advocacy role, whose job would be to engage with non-US companies held within the Trillium portfolios. Trillium has recently been involved in shareholder activism campaigns lobbed at Amazon and Starbucks over their treatment of workers and attempts to unionise. However, it has avoided fossil fuel firms because as it found “most of those dialogues didn’t get very far in moving them along”.