We met recently with Olivier Brousse, chief executive of John Laing Group. He was accompanied by the group’s new CFO, Luciana Germinario. In 2018, we had engaged extensively with the company, inspired by our intention to vote against the report and accounts because of a lack of diversity on the board. This was exacerbated by meagre disclosures in the company’s annual report.
We met recently with Olivier Brousse, chief executive of John Laing Group. He was accompanied by the group’s new CFO, Luciana Germinario. In 2018, we had engaged extensively with the company, inspired by our intention to vote against the report and accounts because of a lack of diversity on the board. This was exacerbated by meagre disclosures in the company’s annual report.
When we engaged with the company’s management team we found a very different picture to the one suggested by the headline statistics and the weak disclosure. The group had recently floated on the London Stock Exchange and was undergoing a transition. This involved moving from its focus on UK public partnership projects to becoming an international business looking to develop a broad range of infrastructure assets.
It became apparent from our interaction with the company that there were clear plans in place to improve diversity on its board, including the appointment of more women. It also had policies and plans in place to ensure a diverse workforce through its infrastructure development activities. The management team pointed out that the majority of graduate employees were female and that 45% of new joiners across the group were female. The company was also adapting from a construction industry heritage to one with a longer-term investment ethos and was now offering flexible working for all employees.
At this investment review meeting, more than 50% of our time was spent reviewing the recent progress on diversity and examining how the group plans to use its future approach to diversity and inclusion as a competitive advantage in the recruitment and retention of talent.
The company now has three women on the board, from one previously, and actively monitors a broad range of diversity data from across its business in the belief that it will be a more successful builder and owner of infrastructure assets by doing so.
The chief executive pointed out that we had been the only investor to raise diversity as an issue with the company, and because we were their largest supporter in terms of ownership proportion, that this served as a wake-up call. This was reinforced by the discussion at the meeting around what best practice looks like across a number of other ESG issues. We have since provided details to the CFO of how we make impact assessments of companies’ activities with respect to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The company’s disclosure of its activities in pursuit of a diverse and inclusive culture has also improved substantially. This gives us confidence that its approach will be maintained to the benefit of future returns from the business.
US-201119-104111-1
We met recently with Olivier Brousse, chief executive of John Laing Group. He was accompanied by the group’s new CFO, Luciana Germinario. In 2018, we had engaged extensively with the company, inspired by our intention to vote against the report and accounts because of a lack of diversity on the board. This was exacerbated by meagre disclosures in the company’s annual report.
When we engaged with the company’s management team we found a very different picture to the one suggested by the headline statistics and the weak disclosure. The group had recently floated on the London Stock Exchange and was undergoing a transition. This involved moving from its focus on UK public partnership projects to becoming an international business looking to develop a broad range of infrastructure assets.
It became apparent from our interaction with the company that there were clear plans in place to improve diversity on its board, including the appointment of more women. It also had policies and plans in place to ensure a diverse workforce through its infrastructure development activities. The management team pointed out that the majority of graduate employees were female and that 45% of new joiners across the group were female. The company was also adapting from a construction industry heritage to one with a longer-term investment ethos and was now offering flexible working for all employees.
At this investment review meeting, more than 50% of our time was spent reviewing the recent progress on diversity and examining how the group plans to use its future approach to diversity and inclusion as a competitive advantage in the recruitment and retention of talent.
The company now has three women on the board, from one previously, and actively monitors a broad range of diversity data from across its business in the belief that it will be a more successful builder and owner of infrastructure assets by doing so.
The chief executive pointed out that we had been the only investor to raise diversity as an issue with the company, and because we were their largest supporter in terms of ownership proportion, that this served as a wake-up call. This was reinforced by the discussion at the meeting around what best practice looks like across a number of other ESG issues. We have since provided details to the CFO of how we make impact assessments of companies’ activities with respect to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The company’s disclosure of its activities in pursuit of a diverse and inclusive culture has also improved substantially. This gives us confidence that its approach will be maintained to the benefit of future returns from the business.
US-201119-104111-1