- As a first step, we collaborate very closely with ISS during the preparation of the AGM's season to make sure that our policy is applied at best and that as many cases as possible are covered.
- We also identify voting items or specific situations that require more attention and that we want to handle on a case-by-case basis. For those voting items, ISS issues no voting recommendation for us and "refers" the item to us so that the vote cannot be casted until we have entered the voting instruction ourself.
- Then, during the voting season, we carrefully review ISS recommendations to detect any potential deviation from our policy or specific situations that might require an exception.
- When a specific situation requires an exception, we enter the rationale directly on the voting plateform under the concerned item so that any exception is documented and easily accessible by any member of the team.
- At the end of the year, we review all exceptions and report on the proportion of voting decisions they represented in our annual voting report. In 2019, those particular cases represented 0.6% of voting decisions. A majority of them concerned authorizations for operations on share capital which did not fully comply with Sycomore guidelines (reserved to a category of investors such as private placement or silent on the possible use during takeover period) and which were supported by Sycomore because their strategic relevance and/or the control structure of the company justified such an exception. Current company's practices or commitments taken upon engagement can also be a ground for exceptions.