Compensation issues continue to be the major focus for investors heading into the 2008 U.S. Proxy season, and as a result, proxy voting policy updates have been released by RiskMetrics Group’s ISS Governance Services unit.
The U.S., Canadian, U.K., and international updates will be applied to all companies with shareholder meeting dates on or after February 1, 2008, and were compiled by ISS’s global research team after it collected and compiled feedback from clients worldwide and in a variety of industry constituencies and key markets.
The strong level of voting support for proposals seekingadvisory votes on Say on Pay indicated that more
Assessment of payprograms will be based on five global principles and
The ISS Governance Services unit’s global research teamconducted extensive policy outreach activities worldwide throughout the year tocollect feedback from clients, a variety of industry constituencies, and keymarkets.
“RiskMetrics Group’s ISS Governance Services unit continuesto build on its open and transparent policy formulation process, which servesas the best cornerstone of our proxy voting policies and vote recommendations,”Cheryl Gustitus, head of marketing and communications at RiskMetrics, said in astatement. “Our 2007 Policy Survey had the broadest response to-date fromour institutional investor clients. We also added several new initiatives to makeour policy formulation process more robust this year, including an internationalcomment period and meetings with shareholder proponents. More so every year, weare confident that our policies reflect the collective voice of institutionalinvestors worldwide.”