Press Release : Voting results of shareholder resolution for Mizuho Financial Group (2nd tally) (2021/1/21)

Press Release

Voting results of shareholder resolution for Mizuho Financial Group (2nd tally):

172 institutions supported Kiko Network’s climate resolution

January 21, 2021

Kiko Network

In March 2020, Kiko Network submitted a shareholder resolution calling on the Mizuho Financial Group (Mizuho) to “.” Although the resolution did not pass at the shareholders’ meeting on June 25, shareholders representing 34.5% of the votes did support the resolution. Climate resolutions such as this are an important tool for organizations to make financial institutions and banks become more climate friendly through shareholder actions.

In September 2020, we released our first tally of shareholder voting. Based on follow-up research of information disclosed, it is revealed that the majority of institutions voted in support of our resolution. From our second tally of voting results, we found that a diverse group of more than 172 institutional investors supported our resolution.

Kiko Network checked publicly available information (as of the end of December 2020) to verify the results of voting by Mizuho's institutional investors (including the results of updated voting rights of affiliates), and found that 172 of 213 institutions supported the resolution, while 34 opposed, 5 had split votes, and 2 abstained. Many overseas institutions supported the resolution, including Nordea Asset Management (the Nordic region's largest asset manager), AP7 (Swedish pension fund), AkademikerPension (Danish pension fund, formerly MP Pension), and Allianz Global Investors (owned by the Allianz global financial services group).

	September 2020 Results	December 2020 Results
For	43	172
Against	15	34
Split vote	1	5
Abstention	0	2

Unfortunately, because most Japanese institutional shareholders do not disclose how they vote on resolutions, gathering information is difficult. However, in the future we expect to see Japanese shareholders follow the global trend in the financial industry and corporate management to become consistent with the Paris Agreement and accelerate ESG investments.

Kiko Network will continue to call on Mizuho to adopt more stringent lending and investment policies, to seek dialogue with those institutional investors and financial institutions that showed an understanding of the intent of our climate resolution, and to call upon other Japanese financial institutions, insurance companies and business in general to accelerate their actions to realize a decarbonized society.

Summary Table

Voting results of Kiko Network’s shareholder resolution filed with Mizuho Financial Group (2nd tally) (PDF)

References

(Press Release) Voting results of shareholder resolution for Mizuho Financial Group (1st tally) (September 24, 2020) (Link)
The Proposal for Mizuho Financial Group (Link)

Previous announcements by Kiko Network about the Mizuho shareholder resolution

Massive global shareholder backing for Mizuho climate shareholder proposal (June 25, 2020)
[Press Release] Major shareholder to support first ever climate resolution in Japan (June 15, 2020)
[Press Release] Kiko Network stands firm: Gaps in Mizuho’s policy require a shareholder proposal on climate (May 22, 2020)
[Press Release] Kiko Network set to proceed with shareholder proposal (May 1, 2020)
[Press Release] Mizuho Financial Group’s tightening of coal finance policy is welcome but further steps needed (April 15, 2020)
[Press Release] Kiko Network, as Mizuho Financial Group shareholder, files first ever climate resolution in Japan (March 16, 2020)

Investor Briefings

Final Investor Briefing: Mizuho’s disclosure and its business strategy remain insufficient (June 15, 2020)
Investor Briefing Update: Gaps in Mizuho’s policy maintains the need for climate-related shareholder proposal Investor (May 1, 2020)
Investor Briefing: Shareholder resolution filed with Mizuho Financial Group (March 16, 2020)