Two cheers for the Financial Reporting Council for failing a third of the asset managers who submitted their annual stewardship reports for the regulators’ approval.

These reports for 2020 are generally long on self-congratulatory virtue signalling, and short on honest assessment of the effectiveness of their stewardship efforts. In particular, there is virtually no recognition of the industry-wide failure to take the threat of pandemics seriously or any commitment to do better in future.