Pension fund agrees to push further on corporate board diversity

Excerpt:

 The board that manages the state’s $86.9 billion pension fund voted Wednesday morning to increase its standards for board diversity and equal employment opportunity at the thousands of companies it invests in, and to promote shareholder proposals related to health coverage and pandemic hazard pay.

The Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) Board signed off on the policy changes developed by Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and recommended by a PRIM subcommittee that would direct PRIM to use its proxy vote as a shareholder to vote against board nominees if the gender and racial makeup of the company’s board do not meet PRIM’s standards, and to support requirements that companies be diverse in terms of race, gender, use of minority-owned businesses as contractors, and use of women-owned businesses as contractors.

Author(s): COLIN A. YOUNG

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Lowell Sun