Following the Financial Reporting Council’s (“FRC”) consultation on the content, application and monitoring of a stewardship code during the first quarter of 2010, the FRC has concluded that the Institutional Shareholders’ Committee’s Code on the Responsibilities of Institutional Investors (the “ISC Code”) provides an appropriate basis for the stewardship code. The FRC published the first UK Stewardship Code for institutional shareholders (the “Stewardship Code”) on 2 July 2010.

The purpose of the Stewardship Code is to promote better dialogue and engagement between institutional shareholders and company boards, and to provide more transparency about the way in which investors oversee the companies that they own, so as to deliver better long-term returns to shareholders.