In response to the growing drive for higher corporate governance standards – both globally and at a national market level - Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) today announced it has commenced live operations of its new “golden copy” event notification and direct vote execution service for the Danish market.
The service, delivered in collaboration with Danish central securities depositary Euronext Securities Copenhagen, enables global and domestic banks, custodians, wealth managers and local agents to streamline processes and transform operational efficiency throughout the proxy voting lifecycle in Denmark, while supporting their compliance obligations under the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II) and Denmark’s updated Companies Act.
The Denmark service is the latest addition to the broad and rapidly expanding Direct Market Solutions (DMS) product suite, which focuses on traditional sub custody voting related activities. Firms using the service can depend on the timely and accurate receipt of meeting notifications sourced directly from Euronext, an extended voting window for underlying clients, and greater transparency through the confirmation of votes submitted and cast.
“With ESG as a central component for investors, the need for best-in-class governance and stewardship practices has never been stronger. Our collaboration with Broadridge will provide a more direct chain of proxy communications, and a higher level of service quality for all players,” said Niels Hjort Rotendahl, CEO, Euronext Securities Copenhagen. “This comes at a pivotal time due to recent changes to the Danish Companies Act removing the need to present Power of Attorney documents, which we anticipate will lead to a significant rise in shareholder participation at meetings and require our combined services.”
“It is our strategic priority to advance shareholder democracy and empower investors – institutional and retail - through the most efficient proxy voting ecosystem for both cross-border and local market participants,” said Demi Derem, GM, International Investor Communications Solutions at Broadridge. “Through close collaboration with Euronext Securities Copenhagen, we have again demonstrated the importance of partnering with market leading infrastructure providers to deliver a best-in-class service that transforms and enhances the client experience, while reducing operating costs through our mutualised service model.”
Broadridge is firmly committed to expanding its market coverage for proxy processing and extended voting windows, with more markets to follow in 2022 and 2023. This complements Broadridge’s existing leading global voting solutions that already provide 100% coverage across 100+ markets.