ROCKVILLE, Md. (March 16, 2023) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), a leading provider of corporate governance and investment stewardship solutions to the global financial community, today released its Global Board-Aligned Voting Policy. The new policy is designed to provide subscribing investors with analyses and recommendations that enable them to vote in a manner that upholds foundational corporate governance principles as a means of protecting and maximizing their investments, while generally aligning with the recommendations of company boards on proposals with an environmental or social focus.
Released to coincide with the start of the 2023 annual shareholder meeting season in most major global markets, the Global Board-Aligned Policy will enable subscribing institutions to focus their voting on widely accepted standards of good corporate governance and the protection of shareholder rights.
On matters of corporate governance, executive compensation, and corporate structure, the Global Board-Aligned Policy guidelines are also focused on the creation and preservation of economic value. On environmental or social matters, the Global Board-Aligned Policy will generally result in recommendations that are in line with those of a company’s board, with recommendations in support of shareholder proposals limited to circumstances where it is considered that greater disclosure will directly enhance or protect shareholder value and is reflective of a clearly established reporting standard in the market.
The Global Board-Aligned Policy can provide comprehensive coverage of every equity holding in a subscribing client’s portfolio. As with all ISS policies, clients retain the ability to control their final vote decision making on all matters.
“As an independent provider of research and voting recommendations, ISS supports investors by providing a broad choice of voting policy options, with a firm foundation of helping identify and mitigate corporate governance risks across our clients’ portfolio companies. We continue to increase our innovative range of specialty policies with this new Global Board-Aligned Policy option,” said Georgina Marshall, Global Head of Research at ISS. “It forms part of ISS’ wide array of voting policy choices, including fully customized voting policies, enabling subscribing investors to vote their shares and those of their underlying clients or beneficiaries in accordance with their own views and keep pace with increasingly sophisticated and varied global investment stewardship requirements.”
Lorraine Kelly, Head of Investment Stewardship Solutions at ISS, added: “ISS’ multiple voting policies can also be utilized as part of ISS’ latest Vote Preference offering, a suite of flexible solutions enabling asset managers to offer voting choices directly to their underlying clients, with split vote management execution capabilities, leveraging ISS ProxyExchange, ISS Communicator and API technology.”
ISS’ Vote Preference solution allows asset managers to easily capture and execute the voting intentions of their underlying clients and provides a full audit trail of communications and vote history, ensuring accurate and timely record-keeping and reporting. For more on ISS’ Vote Preference offering, please click here.
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About ISS Founded in 1985, Institutional Shareholder Services group of companies (ISS) empowers investors and companies to build for long-term and sustainable growth by providing high-quality data, analytics and insight. ISS, which is majority owned by Deutsche Börse Group, along with Genstar Capital and ISS management, is a leading provider of corporate governance, investment stewardship, market intelligence, fund services, and events and editorial content for institutional investors and corporations, globally. ISS operates on an arm’s-length basis and Deutsche Börse has adopted Principles protecting the independence and integrity of ISS’ research offerings. ISS’ 2,800 employees operate worldwide across more than 30 global offices in 15 countries. Its more than 4,000 clients include many of the world’s leading institutional investors who rely on ISS’ objective and impartial ESG and governance research, market intelligence and fund services and data and analytics, as well as public companies focused on ESG and governance risk mitigation as a shareholder value enhancing measure. Clients rely on ISS’ expertise to help them make informed investment decisions. For more information, please visit www.issgovernance.com.
Media Contact:
Sarah Ball, Executive Director, Communications
+44-203-192-5728
sarah.ball@issgovernance.com
ISS Launches Global Board-Aligned Voting Policy
ROCKVILLE, Md. (March 16, 2023) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), a leading provider of corporate governance and investment stewardship solutions to the global financial community, today released its Global Board-Aligned Voting Policy. The new policy is designed to provide subscribing investors with analyses and recommendations that enable them to vote in a manner that upholds foundational corporate governance principles as a means of protecting and maximizing their investments, while generally aligning with the recommendations of company boards on proposals with an environmental or social focus.
Released to coincide with the start of the 2023 annual shareholder meeting season in most major global markets, the Global Board-Aligned Policy will enable subscribing institutions to focus their voting on widely accepted standards of good corporate governance and the protection of shareholder rights.
On matters of corporate governance, executive compensation, and corporate structure, the Global Board-Aligned Policy guidelines are also focused on the creation and preservation of economic value. On environmental or social matters, the Global Board-Aligned Policy will generally result in recommendations that are in line with those of a company’s board, with recommendations in support of shareholder proposals limited to circumstances where it is considered that greater disclosure will directly enhance or protect shareholder value and is reflective of a clearly established reporting standard in the market.
The Global Board-Aligned Policy can provide comprehensive coverage of every equity holding in a subscribing client’s portfolio. As with all ISS policies, clients retain the ability to control their final vote decision making on all matters.
“As an independent provider of research and voting recommendations, ISS supports investors by providing a broad choice of voting policy options, with a firm foundation of helping identify and mitigate corporate governance risks across our clients’ portfolio companies. We continue to increase our innovative range of specialty policies with this new Global Board-Aligned Policy option,” said Georgina Marshall, Global Head of Research at ISS. “It forms part of ISS’ wide array of voting policy choices, including fully customized voting policies, enabling subscribing investors to vote their shares and those of their underlying clients or beneficiaries in accordance with their own views and keep pace with increasingly sophisticated and varied global investment stewardship requirements.”
Lorraine Kelly, Head of Investment Stewardship Solutions at ISS, added: “ISS’ multiple voting policies can also be utilized as part of ISS’ latest Vote Preference offering, a suite of flexible solutions enabling asset managers to offer voting choices directly to their underlying clients, with split vote management execution capabilities, leveraging ISS ProxyExchange, ISS Communicator and API technology.”
ISS’ Vote Preference solution allows asset managers to easily capture and execute the voting intentions of their underlying clients and provides a full audit trail of communications and vote history, ensuring accurate and timely record-keeping and reporting. For more on ISS’ Vote Preference offering, please click here.
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About ISS Founded in 1985, Institutional Shareholder Services group of companies (ISS) empowers investors and companies to build for long-term and sustainable growth by providing high-quality data, analytics and insight. ISS, which is majority owned by Deutsche Börse Group, along with Genstar Capital and ISS management, is a leading provider of corporate governance, investment stewardship, market intelligence, fund services, and events and editorial content for institutional investors and corporations, globally. ISS operates on an arm’s-length basis and Deutsche Börse has adopted Principles protecting the independence and integrity of ISS’ research offerings. ISS’ 2,800 employees operate worldwide across more than 30 global offices in 15 countries. Its more than 4,000 clients include many of the world’s leading institutional investors who rely on ISS’ objective and impartial ESG and governance research, market intelligence and fund services and data and analytics, as well as public companies focused on ESG and governance risk mitigation as a shareholder value enhancing measure. Clients rely on ISS’ expertise to help them make informed investment decisions. For more information, please visit www.issgovernance.com.
Media Contact:
Sarah Ball, Executive Director, Communications
+44-203-192-5728
sarah.ball@issgovernance.com
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