Corporate Governance

Policy for Fulfilling Stewardship Responsibilities

Basic policy

At Konica Minolta, Inc., our long-term management vision is "Imaging to the People". We aim to be a company vital to global society by satisfying our customers' needs to "see" and a robust and innovative company that continues to evolve and contribute to the sustainable growth of people's lives and society.

We, Konica Minolta, Inc., adopt a contract-type defined-benefit corporate pension, and we hereby announce that we accept Japan's Stewardship Code as the asset owner of the corporate pension and will fulfill the stewardship responsibilities to the best of our abilities, and request investment managers to fulfill their stewardship responsibilities as well.

Correspondence to each principle of “Japan’s Stewardship Code"

Principle 1.
Institutional investors should have a clear policy on how they fulfill their stewardship responsibilities and publicly disclose it.

We, as the asset owner of the corporate pension, request investment managers to accept the principles of the "responsible institutional investor", Japan's Stewardship Code and engage in effective stewardship activities that take into consideration sustainability in compliance with its investment strategy (mid-to-long term sustainability including ESG factors) and are designed to contribute to mid-to-long term increase of corporate value of investee companies. We will monitor whether investment managers are having constructive 'purposeful dialogue' with investee companies.

Principle 2.
Institutional investors should have a clear policy on how they manage conflicts of interest in fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities and publicly disclose it.

We request investment managers to establish and publicly disclose a clear policy on how they manage conflicts of interest in fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities and form a governance structure to prevent conflicts of interest.
We will manage this properly by choosing investment managers from a wholistic approach, considering not only investment return results but also investment policy, operational structure, and compliance, and entrusting judgement of exercising voting rights solely to investment managers, eliminating any room for our intervention.

Principle 3.
Institutional investors should monitor investee companies so that they can appropriately fulfill their stewardship responsibilities with an orientation towards the sustainable growth of the companies.

We request investment managers to monitor investee companies to appropriately fulfill their stewardship responsibilities with an orientation towards the sustainable growth of companies.

Principle 4.
Institutional investors should seek to arrive at an understanding in common with investee companies and work to solve problems through constructive engagement with investee companies.

We request investment managers to seek to arrive at an understanding in common with investee companies and work to solve problems through constructive 'purposeful dialogue' in order to enhance their mid-to-long term value and capital efficiency and promote their sustainable growth.

Principle 5.
Institutional investors should have a clear policy on voting and disclosure of voting activity. The policy on voting should not be comprised only of a mechanical checklist: it should be designed to contribute to the sustainable growth of investee companies.

We request investment managers to establish a clear policy on voting and disclosure of voting activity records, and to design such policy to contribute to the sustainable growth of investee companies. We also request them to disclose voting records for each investee company and on each individual agenda item basis based on this policy.

Principle 6.
Institutional investors in principle should report periodically on how they fulfill their stewardship responsibilities, including their voting responsibilities, to their clients and beneficiaries.

Since we outsource the management of corporate pension assets to investment managers and are in a position to fulfill stewardship responsibilities through investment managers of the contractors, we request investment managers to report the implementation status and we will report the results to the beneficiaries of the corporate pension at least once a year.

Principle 7.
To contribute positively to the sustainable growth of investee companies, institutional investors should develop skills and resources needed to appropriately engage with the companies and to make proper judgments in fulfilling their stewardship activities based on in-depth knowledge of the investee companies and their business environment and consideration of sustainability consistent with their investment management strategies.

Since we outsource the management of corporate pension assets to investment managers, we request investment managers to develop the appropriate skills to fulfill their stewardship responsibilities.
In addition, we will endeavor to develop the ability to evaluate the stewardship activities of investment managers.

Principle 8.
Service providers for institutional investors should endeavor to contribute to the enhancement of the functions of the entire investment chain by appropriately providing services for institutional investors to fulfill their stewardship responsibilities.

We request our service providers for institutional investors to identify specific circumstances that may give rise to conflicts of interest, put in place a clear policy of how to manage them effectively, develop structures for conflicts of interest management, and disclose such measures.