Reinforcing Stewardship: Minerva Renews UK Code Signature

August 13, 2025

By Jack Grogan-Fenn

Minerva Analytics has been named as a signatory of the UK Stewardship Code for 2025, retaining its status for a third consecutive year.

Minerva has been a voluntary signatory to the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) Stewardship Code since it was launched in 2010, reflecting the organisation’s longstanding commitment to responsible investment and good stewardship. 

Minerva has provided institutional investors with a comprehensive range of stewardship support services since its 1995 launch. Further details on these services can be found in Minerva’s annual UK Stewardship Code report. 

The UK Stewardship Code 2020 purports to “set high stewardship standards for those investing money on behalf of UK savers and pensioners, and those that support them”. This includes asset owners, asset managers and service providers such as proxy advisors and investment consultants.

The FRC this week announced that Code now has 299 signatories representing £56 trillion (U$76 trillion) in AUM, comprising 199 asset managers, 21 service providers and 79 asset owners. This means that there are two new signatories to the code, both of whom are asset owners.

The 2020 code outlines six principles that service providers must meet to be signatories. These principles comprise Purpose, Strategy and Culture; Governance, Resources and Incentives; Conflicts of Interest; Promoting Well-Functioning Markets; Supporting Client’s Stewardship; and Review and Assurance. A summary of how Minerva adheres to these principles can be found here.

The deadline for reporting under the Stewardship Code this year is October 31. It will be the last time reporting against the 2020 code, with the new 2026 version imminently coming into effect.

In June, the FRC confirmed details of the updates to the Stewardship Code which will come into effect on January 1 2026, as reported by Minerva Analytics. The first applications to the updated code are set to be accepted in Spring 2026. The revised code reframes the definition of stewardship, which has been sharply criticised in some quarters. This backlash emerged both in a consultation which ran between November 2024 and February 2025 on the proposed changes to the code and since the publication of the finalised version in early June.

The 2026 code also introduces new specific principles for proxy advisors, investment consultants, and engagement service providers. The principle impacting proxy advisors will require them to explain how they “ensure the quality and accuracy of their research, recommendations and voting implementation”. This will also compel proxy advisors to explain how they have developed their benchmark voting policy or standardised policies, including how they have engaged with clients and others to inform their development. Proxy advisors will additionally have to detail which stakeholders they have engaged with and how, and in what circumstances the engagement has occurred, including where stakeholders have requested engagement.

Minerva Analytics’ CEO Sarah Wilson described the separation of service providers into different segments as being “curious, pigeonholing service providers this way just doesn’t reflect today’s reality”.

“Stewardship support is a blend of complementary solutions, it's not just about one size fits all voting recommendations,” she said. “We recognise that there is ongoing confusion about roles and responsibilities, and hope that the new Code, together with the Best Practice Principles for Shareholder Voting Research, will encourage stakeholders to take a more nuanced approach to understanding stewardship functions.”

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