Policy as
Asset Owner

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”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We, Konica Minolta, Inc., as an asset owner (an institutional investor that holds assets), declare that we agree and accept the intent of common principles for asset owners' investment, governance, and risk management (the “Asset Owner Principles”) for the best interests of participants and beneficiaries of contract-type defined benefit corporate pension.

Principle 1.

Asset owners should take into account the best interests of beneficiaries. In doing so, they should determine the purpose of investing, and then set investment targets and policies based on the purpose through an appropriate process, taking into account the economic and financial situation. The purpose of investing, targets, and policies should be reviewed as appropriately in response to changes in situations.

We, in our contract-type defined benefit corporate pension, aim to ensure the future payment of pension benefits and lump-sum payments for the benefit of beneficiaries such as recipients and participants, and the necessary long-term total returns.
In addition, taking into account the economic and financial situation, we establish an investment target over the long term and a basic portfolio, and review and decide once a year whether any revisions are necessary.

Principle 2.

Asset owners need to make decisions based on their expert knowledge, in pursuing the best interests of beneficiaries. They should develop an appropriate structure, by securing talents with sufficient knowledge and experience, in order to realize the investment purpose and policies set forth by Principle 1. They should make such a structure function properly, and consider using external knowledge and outsourcing when needed to receive and enhance expert knowledge.

We, in order to achieve our long-term investment target through appropriate investment and risk management, assign qualified personnel with experience in accounting and finance to our investment managers and hold the Pension Asset Management Committee to ensure appropriate governance. Furthermore, we utilize the analysis and advice from an external investment consultant to supplement and enhance expert knowledge that is necessary for appropriate investment decisions.

Principle 3.

Asset owners should choose investment methods appropriately to achieve the investment targets, based on the investment policies, from the viewpoint of the interests of beneficiaries, not those of themselves or third parties. Asset owners should appropriately manage risks, including by diversifying the investment portfolio. In particular, when they entrust investment to other entities such as financial institutions, the asset owners should select the optimal investment trustee while managing conflicts of interest. The choice of the investment trustee should be reviewed periodically.

We, in order to achieve our long-term investment target through appropriate investment and risk management, formulate the basic portfolio in accordance with our basic policy for the pension asset investment taking into account the results of pension asset management analysis etc., and appropriately manage risk by diversifying investments across traditional assets (stocks and bonds) and alternative ones. When selecting investment managers, we utilize the expert advice from an external investment consultant to select the most suitable investment managers while managing conflicts of interest appropriately, and we also regularly review them in accordance with quantitative standards compared to benchmarks.

Principle 4.

Asset owners should provide information on the status of asset management ("visualization") and engage in dialogues with stakeholders, in order to fulfill accountability to stakeholders.

We provide information on the minutes of the Pension Asset Management Committee and report on investment results on the company intranet, etc., in order to fulfill our accountability to stakeholders, including beneficiaries and participants.

Principle 5.

Asset owners should give consideration to the sustainable growth of investee companies by conducting stewardship activities by themselves or through the investment trustee, in order to achieve the investment targets for beneficiaries.

We accepted Japan's Stewardship Code in March 2021 and have announced our policy on each principle. We continuously monitor the stewardship activities of our investment managers to promote the enhancement of the corporate value and sustainable growth of investee companies through their stewardship activities.