Investors, Companies and Corporate Governance Organizations Invited to Participate in ISS‘ Annual Policy Formulation Process
ROCKVILLE, MD (August 2, 2016) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of proxy advisory and corporate governance solutions to financial market participants, today launched its 2017 Annual Policy Survey, a key component of ISS’ annual global benchmark policy formulation process. Institutional investors, companies, corporate directors and other market constituents are invited to participate in the survey. The survey will close on August 30 at 5pm ET.
This year the survey covers a number of key issues for consideration as part of potential updates in 2017 to ISS’ benchmark policy guidelines, including questions on how to define “overboarding” for executive board chairs and gauging respondents’ preferred frequency of say-on-pay votes in the U.S., the use of time-based vesting shares in the U.K., and the use of sign-on awards for directors in Canada.
“We encourage and welcome market participants’ feedback on potentially new or amended benchmark policy areas that will, if adopted, inform the vote recommendations and research we deliver to institutional investor clients” said Georgina Marshall, ISS’ Global Head of Research. “ISS’ annual survey process is unique among proxy advisers and part of our long-standing commitment to both inclusivity and transparency in developing ISS’ benchmark policy.”
In addition to this global survey, ISS conducts a variety of regionally-based, topic-specific roundtables and conference calls to examine local market best practices and gather input that will also factor into the development of ISS’ benchmark policy guidelines globally. After analysis and consideration of the survey responses, ISS will, as in prior years, later open a comment period for all interested market participants on the final proposed changes to our policies for 2017. The open comment period is designed to elicit objective, specific feedback from investors, corporations and other industry constituents on the practical implementation of proposed policy updates as well as any new policies.
