BlackRock has announced that it plans to expand its Voting Choice program to its largest ETF, iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), which has $305 billion assets under management, making over three million IVV shareholder accounts eligible to participate.
BlackRock announced the decision in a July 17 press release stating that expansion is expected to be in effect for the 2024 proxy season subject to its approval by the iShares board.
The asset management giant explained that it will use the pilot expansion as an opportunity to evaluate investor interest, the necessary proxy voting infrastructure, and overall user experience to assess further expansion of the program.
Voting Choice was launched by BlackRock nearly two years ago to make proxy voting easier and more accessible for eligible institutional clients.
In November last year, a pilot program was unveiled to allow retail investors in the U.K. to vote on proxy contests for the first time, after forming a partnership with digital platform Proxymity.
BlackRock said that the latest expansion will operate in a similar way to its Voting Choice for pension funds, and will offer eligible investors a range of third-party policies to choose from, as well as the option to continue to vote according to the BlackRock Investment Stewardship policy.
Salim Ramji, BlackRock’s global head of iShares and index investments, said, “BlackRock has been working for years with public and corporate pension funds and other institutional investors to make voting easier and more accessible than ever before. These efforts have spurred innovation in the proxy voting ecosystem, catalyzing an industry movement to further shareholder democracy.”