Australian Methodology Changes Include New Factors on Remuneration Report Support Levels, Use of Show-of-Hands
SYDNEY, Australia (January 18, 2017) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of end-to-end governance and responsible investment solutions to the global financial community, today announced the release of ISS QualityScore updates for the Asia-Pacific region slated for 17 February.
A focal point of the updates will be the augmentation of the ISS QualityScore methodology for companies in Australia and New Zealand to provide institutional investor subscribers with deeper insight into governance practices of S&P/ASX200 and S&P/NZX15 companies. Following the 17 February release, subscribers will be able to determine whether the company discloses the presence of a senior independent director or an independent lead director, the proportion of women on the board, the use of “show-of-hands” voting at the last general meeting, and whether the most recent remuneration report vote received significant opposition, among other updates.
Meanwhile, coverage expansion adds new Japanese companies to include the full Nikkei 400, bringing ISS QualityScore’s total global coverage to more than 5,700 companies across 30 markets.
As part of the pending update, covered companies in Australia, New Zealand and Japan will be able to access and verify their corporate data profiles to ensure accuracy. Verification will occur over a one week period commencing 6 February. Methodology enhancements, new company coverage, and verified data changes will all be reflected upon the formal release on 17 February.
To streamline and consolidate company workflow onto a single platform, ISS QualityScore data verification will be handled via ISS Corporate Solutions’ (ICS) Governance Analytics platform, which is the same location companies visit to download their complimentary ISS proxy research analysis. Additional instructions for companies on the data verification process will follow in the coming days.
ISS QualityScore provides a score for each company in its coverage universe that measures the company’s level of corporate governance risk, both overall and within four broad pillars: board structure, compensation/remuneration, shareholder rights, and audit & risk oversight. Importantly, ISS QualityScore subscribers have the ability to access and analyze the underlying data from which the scores are generated, allowing them to screen portfolio companies against hundreds of corporate governance factors or perform detailed side by side comparisons of two or more companies’ profiles.
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