Kempen Capital Management is an asset manager that believes in stewardship and investment focusing on the long-term for the benefit of all stakeholders. Value creation is at the heart of the services we provide to our clients. We believe that being an engaged shareholder on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and retaining a long-term focus, is critical to helping our clients to preserve and create sustainable wealth that has positive real world impact and economic returns.

Kempen wide approach to responsible investment

We are committed to create sustainable alpha. The four pillars of our ESG-policy are:

• ESG integration: Ensuring sustainability risks and opportunities are adequately considered in our investment analysis and processes.

• Exclusion & avoidance: Not investing in companies involved in controversial activities or conduct.

• Active ownership: Being responsible stewards of our clients’ capital and using our influence through engagement and voting to improve corporate behaviour on specific ESG issues and achieve positive change

• Positive impact: Investing with an objective to achieve positive real world outcomes and impact, such as contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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To put our mission and vision into practice we engage with our investee companies on a wide array of strategic, financial, and ESG topics. As an active owner we use our influence to improve our investee companies’ ESG performance.  This helps us address some of the most pressing and important sustainability issues facing business and the world. Our focus themes for engagement are: human rights, labour rights, climate change and governance.

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Through collaboration with other investors and industry think tanks we contribute to the development of principles and standards of corporate responsibility both at sector levels, as well as investee company level.

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Our full voting records are available here.

Our fund approach to responsible investment

Kempen’s ESG policy is fully implemented in our fund’s investment process across the three relevant pillars of: Exclusion, ESG integration and Active ownership

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The Kempen Orange Fund (KOF) N.V. invests in smaller and medium-sized Dutch companies that are included in the GPR Dutch Small Cap Index. The fund can also invest in Dutch and Belgian companies which are not included in the Index, provided that their market capitalisation is less than €5 billion at the time of purchase. KOF positions itself as a long-term engaged shareholder. We engage with our investee companies on a regular basis. These engagements include, but are certainly not limited to, our voting instructions at the company’s AGM. We always vote the shares of investee companies and if necessary attend annual meetings to stress our discussion points to management, potentially in collaboration with other stakeholders.

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The figure 'ESG integration in the investment process' is a step-by-step illustration of how Kempen’s ESG policy is integrated in the fund’s investment process.

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1. Exclusion

The fund excludes investment in entities involved in the production tobacco and of controversial weapons, such as cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, nuclear warheads, chemical and biological weapons.

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2. ESG integration

In the fundamental analysis phase, we dive deeper into the ESG characteristics of a company. During the process we focus on each company on a case by case basis looking at the material risks in that specific industry and the firm’s exposure, practices and disclosure. In this phase we use various data sources, including MSCI ESG Research and Sustainalytics. If our opinion deviates from the external ESG research providers we explain why. Furthermore we look into the company’s exposure to controversies and opportunities which could reduce or increase our ESG score. Based on the above analysis we form an opinion on the quality of a company’s ESG profile and give each company a score (1-5). A lower score would require a higher upside potential to be included in the portfolio.

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3. Active ownership

As active long-term investors we perform comprehensive engagements with our portfolio companies. We strongly believe that our level of engagement with our portfolio companies is much deeper compared to our competitors. We frequently speak with the management teams of our portfolio companies. Each controversial item, as well as every individual engagement, is well-documented. We monitor the progress the company is making and continue to use our influence to create positive change.

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Exercising our voting rights is also an essential part of our responsible investment philosophy. We are actively engaging with our portfolio companies and make remarks on the agenda of annual and extraordinary meetings. We often attend annual meetings in person to stress our discussion points towards management, sometimes in collaboration with other stakeholders.

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Kempen’s ESG Team also performs a quarterly screen on our portfolio and may propose engagement with low ESG performers. The results of this screening are discussed in a separate meeting and an action list is created based on the outcomes of this meeting.

^{Although Kempen Capital Management N.V.’s information providers, including without limitation, MSCI ESG Research LLC and its affiliates (the “ESG Parties”), obtain information from sources they consider reliable, none of the ESG Parties warrants or guarantees the originality, accuracy and/or completeness of any data herein. None of the ESG Parties makes any express or implied warranties of any kind, and the ESG Parties hereby expressly disclaim all warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to any data herein. None of the ESG Parties shall have any liability for any errors or omissions in connection with any data herein. Further, without limiting any of the foregoing, in no event shall any of the ESG Parties have any liability for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, consequential or any other damages (including lost profits) even if notified of the possibility of such damages.}