Legal & General Investment Management, one of the Europe’s largest asset managers and a major global investor, voted against four company chairmen in 2015 because they had made insufficient progress in increasing the number of women on their boards – and plans to pursue the same policy this year.

Publishing its 2015 corporate governance report on April 25, LGIM said it had voted against the chairmen at FTSE 250 gold miner Centamin, and the biotech firm Genus, also a member of the UK mid-cap index, on these grounds.