UK: FRC announces new Stewardship Code signatories

The Financial Reporting Council has, today, published an updated list of signatories to the UK Stewardship Code. The updated list includes 74 new signatories, from 105 applications made at the end of October 2021. The total number of signatories is now 199. 

Perhaps more interestingly, the FRC has stated - at the bottom of its press release announcing the new 74 signatories - that following "wide engagement with stakeholders" it no longer plans to tier or differentiate signatories to the Code from 2022. Signatories were not tiered last year, but in March 2021 (see here, pdf, para. 39) the FRC said that it "may in future consider introducing mechanisms to differentiate the quality of signatories' reports". The reason given by the FRC today (to quote from the press release): "Asset owners, investment consultants and investment managers felt that standard to become a Stewardship Code signatory is already high and that the FRC should focus on encouraging more of the market to reach this standard".