Investors target French companies over lack of women in top jobs
Group of asset managers calls on 120 biggest businesses to make 30% of executive management teams female by 2025
Amundi, Axa Investment Managers and four other asset managers have joined forces to demand that big public companies in France appoint more women to executive jobs.
The group is calling on companies in the SBF 120, the index of the country’s 120 biggest companies, to hit a target that at least 30 per cent of their executive management teams are female by 2025.
It warned that if companies did not make enough progress, the asset managers could use their votes at annual meetings to punish them.
Although there are few in top jobs, women have made some progress in corporate France in the past decade. According to research firm Ethics & Boards, women made up 20.9 per cent of management ranks in companies in the CAC 40 — the 40 largest companies in the SBF 120 — in January 2020, compared with 7.3 per cent in 2009.
There is currently only one female chief executive in the CAC 40, Catherine MacGregor at energy group Engie, though cosmetics maker L'Oréal recently named Barbara Lavernos as its first female deputy CEO, a post that has traditionally led to that of chief executive.
Axa IM’s own executive team is 38 per cent female. At Amundi, the figure is 28 per cent.
The 30% Club France Investor Group is part of the 30% Club, which over the past decade has been a vocal advocate for the need to improve the gender balance in business.
The French group, which also includes La Banque Postale Asset Management, Sycomore Asset Management and two firms affiliated with Natixis Investment Managers, Mirova and Ostrum Asset Management, said: “As investors, we want to encourage the sustainable growth of the companies in which we invest, and we are convinced that this can come from a better representation of women in executive management teams.”
Marie Fromaget, co-chair of the group and an analyst at Axa IM, said that despite the introduction of a 40 per cent quota for women on boards in France in 2017, the number of women in executive roles remained disappointingly low.
“We want to have a discussion with companies about the diversity pipeline to the top, to really break the glass ceiling and allow women to get to the top naturally,” she said, adding that the 30 per cent target was “a minimum and not a ceiling”.
The asset managers, which between them have about €3tn under management, want French businesses to set goals to improve the number of women in top jobs and implement plans to achieve this.
Investors have become more outspoken about the need for diversity in companies in recent years, in response to research that suggests diverse businesses are better performing.
Ann Cairns, global chair of the 30% Club and executive vice-chair of Mastercard, said: “When companies are encouraged to prioritise diversity in their leadership, their financial results improve — something we see through the 30% Club time and time again.”
The 30% Club was founded in the UK in 2010 with the aim of increasing gender diversity on boards and in senior management teams. The first 30% Club Investor Group was launched in the UK in 2011 and focuses on co-ordinating the investment industry’s approach to diversity.