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According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which announced the rules, asset managers must also “provide information to asset owners, including on how their investment strategies contribute to the medium to long-term performance of the assets”.
The regulator said the rules were “a close copy-out” of relevant requirements in the revised EU Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II), except with regard to geographic scope.
The rules will namely apply to investments in shares traded not only on markets in the European Economic Area (EEA) – which is the minimum requirement of SRD II – but also on “comparable” markets outside the EEA.
The new rules come into effect on 10 June, which is the deadline for EU member states to implement SRD II, itself passed in 2017. However, given the short time period between publication of the rules and their becoming effective, the FCA indicated that asset managers could explain what they were doing to develop an engagement policy if they did not have one to publish.