ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of corporate governance solutions to the global financial community, today kicked off its annual global policy formulation process by inviting its institutional investor clients along with industry constituents to participate in its 2011 proxy voting policy survey. With many changes to the market and regulatory landscape anticipated in the coming year, ISS’ policy survey offers market participants an opportunity to express their views and priorities related to key corporate governance issues.
Each year, since 2005, ISS has undertaken a fully transparent and an extraordinarily extensive policy formulation process that includes a broad-based global survey, issue and market-specific roundtables and an open comment period, modeled after that of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. During the process, clients and industry constituents are encouraged to provide their views on key governance issues likely to impact the upcoming proxy season. ISS then formulates its proxy voting policies to reflect the collective thinking of its institutional investor clients, supported by empirical research on market practice.
"As the market and regulatory landscape continues to evolve, corporate governance priorities and practices will be under review, in particular, with regard to executive compensation,” said Dr. Martha Carter, Head of ISS’ Global Governance Research Team. "No other proxy advisory firm goes to this length or makes this significant an investment to ensure that its policy guidelines strike the right balance between shareholder value and business practicality," continued Carter.
The survey period is open through August 3, and will be followed in October by an open comment period after which, ISS publishes its draft policies. The open comment period is designed to elicit objective, specific feedback from investors, corporate issuers and industry constituents on the practical implementation of proposed policies. Unless specifically requested by the submitter, feedback received during the open comment period will be made available via ISS' online Policy Gateway.
ISS is the only proxy advisor to gather, assess and incorporate market feedback into its institutional proxy voting policies and remains committed to enhancing its policy formulation process. To learn more about ISS’ policy formulation process, please visit: www.issgovernance.com/policy.
About ISS
ISS, founded in 1985 as Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., is the world's leading provider of proxy advisory and corporate governance solutions to financial market participants. ISS' services include objective proxy research and analysis, end-to-end proxy voting and distribution solutions, turnkey securities class-action claims management, and reliable governance data and modeling tools. More than 1,700 clients rely on ISS' expertise to help them make informed corporate governance decisions. ISS is located in financial centers worldwide and is a subsidiary of MSCI Inc., a leading provider of investment decision support tools to investors globally. For more information, please visit www.issgovernance.com.
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