Proxy voting and American Funds... what you need to know
View our procedures and principles for how we vote proxies of the companies held in our mutual funds.
A proxy authorizes someone other than the owner of a stock to cast a vote on his or her behalf at the issuing company’s shareholder meeting. Proxies typically are used by shareholders to elect a company’s board of directors, select independent auditors, approve executive compensation and vote on other management- or shareholder-sponsored proposals.
With responsibility for millions of shares of stocks, American Funds routinely votes by proxy. Through this process, we aim to promote the long-term financial interests of our shareholders.
Our proxy guidelines
We view proxies of companies held by the portfolios as significant fund assets — and proxy voting as an integral part of the overall investment process. Our guidelines summarize our internal operating procedures for voting company proxies.
View the guidelines for our retail mutual funds and American Funds Insurance SeriesSM (
PDF), as well as American Funds Target Date Retirement Series® ( PDF).
Our proxy voting results
Throughout the year, we vote on thousands of proposals from all types of companies: from small businesses to international corporations.*
Links to the most recent proxy voting results for equity securities held in each of our funds are listed below.
Please note: To view the linked documents below, you’ll need Adobe Reader. For best results, use Reader 7.0 or above. Download the latest version free from 
Adobe. Because of the numerous stocks held by many of the funds, some of the proxy results reports are large. You may experience delays in downloading them.
- AMCAP Fund® (AMCAP)
- American Balanced Fund® (AMBAL)
- American Funds Insurance Series (AFIS)
- American High-Income Municipal Bond FundSM (AHIM)†
- American High-Income TrustSM (AHIT)
- American Mutual FundSM (AMF)
- The Bond Fund of AmericaSM (BFA)
- Capital Income Builder® (CIB)
- Capital World Bond Fund® (WBF)†
- Capital World Growth and Income FundSM (WGI)
- EuroPacific Growth Fund® (EUPAC)
- Fundamental InvestorsSM (FI)
- The Growth Fund of America® (GFA)
- The Income Fund of America® (IFA)
- Intermediate Bond Fund of America® (IBFA)†
- International Growth and Income FundSM (IGI)‡
- The Investment Company of America® (ICA)
- Limited Term Tax-Exempt Bond Fund of AmericaSM (LTEX)†
- The New Economy Fund® (NEF)
- New Perspective Fund® (NPF)
- New World FundSM (NWF)
- Short-Term Bond Fund of AmericaSM (STBF)†
- SMALLCAP World Fund® (SCWF)
- The Tax-Exempt Bond Fund of America® (TEBF)†
- The Tax-Exempt Fund of California® (TEFCA)†
- The Tax-Exempt Fund of Maryland® (TEFMD)†
- The Tax-Exempt Fund of Virginia® (TEFVA)†
- U.S. Government Securities FundSM (GVT)†
- Washington Mutual Investors FundSM (WMIF)
- The Cash Management Trust of America® (CMTA)†
- The Tax-Exempt Money Fund of AmericaSM (CTEX)†
- The U.S. Treasury Money Fund of AmericaSM (CTRS)†
If you have questions about our proxy guidelines and voting results, please contact your financial professional or call us at 800/421-0180, ext. 4, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. If you are outside the U.S., contact your operator to call us collect at 757/670-4900 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time, or 949/975-5000 between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.
*In some situations, we don’t participate in proxy votes for stocks outside of the U.S., particularly when the expense outweighs the benefit to shareholders, liquidity issues exist, documents are not sufficient to make an informed decision, or if we are not notified of a scheduled meeting.
†No equities held in the fund during the reporting period.
‡Operations began October 1, 2008. Therefore, there are no proxy voting results for the 12 months ended June 30.