ACSI will urge members to vote against male directors if a 30pc women quota isn’t met

Proxy adviser ASCI says it wants answers from 97 companies on the ASX 300 on how they intend to bring more women aboard, otherwise it will recommend voting against male incumbents.

Australian Council of Superannuation Investors chief Louise Davidson. Picture: Aaron Francis

Powerful proxy adviser the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors says 97 listed companies face a vote against male directors at their annual shareholders meeting because women do not make up for at least 30 per cent of their board.

ACSI, which provides voting recommendations to 26 industry superannuation funds with over $1 trillion in assets under management, has written to all companies making up the ASX 300 index, putting them on notice of its intention.

“We expect that this will prompt some further thinking at companies that currently don’t meet our expectations and we will conduct some engagement with those companies,” ACSI chief executive Louise Davidson said.

“We will be interested to hear about any plans that they have to bring more women on to the board and the timing for that.

“For those companies that are not able to demonstrate the commitment to action on this, we would recommend to our members that they vote against the re-election of male directors on those boards.”

Some of the 97 companies under the quota include Goodman Group, HUB24 Ltd, Magellan Financial, JB Hi-Fi Ltd, Seven West Media Ltd, IAG Group and Harvey Norman.

The move, which will target chairmen who are up for re-election, gives companies which are falling behind, five or six months until the annual general meeting season in October and November.

The new quota is seen as a stepping stone to achieve ACSI’s long-term goal of seeing at least 40 per cent of women on all company boards by 2025. ACSI will also be encouraging companies to develop a time frame within which they will achieve that gender balance.

It follows from its previous policy that targeted companies without any women on the board or with just one woman.

Companies on the ASX 300 on average have 34 per cent of women on their boards, but 12 of them still do not have a single woman in board roles, while 62 of them only have 25 per cent or fewer female directors.

“We first adopted a policy on women on boards in 2015 and so this is just a logical extension of that,” Ms Davidson said.

“Now we’re saying ‘okay, certain amount of time has passed now and it’s our expectation that you would be moving closer to an (balanced) position”

Women represent 36 per cent of all company directors in the ASX 200 index – almost double the 19 per cent in 2015.

Having more women directors at the top of corporate Australia has also meant an increase in age diversity in boards because women are often appointed to boards at a younger age than men.

“There’s a fair way to go – even in the top 200 companies there are still 54 who fall below 30 per cent. Ultimately though, we hope that this policy becomes obsolete in the next five years,” Mr Davidson said.

Companies without a single woman on the board that form part of the ASX 300 include gold miner Capricorn Metals, lithium producer Core Lithium, semiconductor technology developer Weebit Nano, and mining explorers Argosy Minerals and Sayona Mining.

“The old excuse was that there weren’t enough women with ‘appropriate’ qualifications but Australian boards have dispelled that argument,” she said.

So far this year, 45 per cent of board appointments have been women.

Companies that had gender diversity at the top were “diverse in their thinking” and were more financially successful in the longer term, she said. ACSI will try to be flexible in implementing the target, but expected a change from the laggards.

“We will talk to boards; if that board is just under 30 per cent then we are open to negotiation on whether or not that means that they get some more time before we would be recommending a vote against,” she said.

“But I think, 30 per cent seems to me in some ways to be quite a modest request.”