Many press reports attribute 20% of voting power at some companies to recommendations made by ISS. That makes them sound like one of the most powerful entities in the world. However, much of their “power” is based on their annual survey, which helps ISS shape its recommendations to meet the voting preferences of its customers. […]
Tag Archives | ISS
ISS Vote Results and Executive Pay
James McRitchie, 06/30/2011 ,
ISS released a summary of the vote results for shareholder proposals on leading governance, environmental and social topics. Investors overwhelmingly endorsed company pay programs, 91.2% support on average (based on “for” and “against” votes). Shareholders voted down management “say on pay” proposals at 36 companies, or just 1.7 percent of the almost 2,200 companies in the […]
Power Struggles Over Pay
James McRitchie, 06/27/2011 ,
Gary Larkin’s recent post, 2011 CEO Succession Report: Dismissals Up, Outside Hires on the Rise, informs Conference Board readers that Institutional Shareholder Services has launched an executive compensation database service for its client subscribers. Say on Pay rules were the driving force behind the new service. The database includes historical CEO and NEO (named executive […]
Video Friday: 2011 Proxy Season to Date
James McRitchie, 06/03/2011 ,
This Week in the Boardroom‘s TK Kerstetter and Scott Cutler were joined on May 26 by John Siemann, President of Phoenix Advisory Partners. (Watch the video.) Early proxy filings were tilted towards the triennial. Very quickly, that began to as proxy advisory services and larger institutions made it clear they wanted an annual vote. ISS […]
Kinetic Concepts: Victory for Shareowners!
James McRitchie, 05/17/2011 ,
I was about to sit down this morning and write another scathing post on Kinetic Concepts when I learned of their press release announcing they will gradually declassify their board. They gave no reason as to why they took this action just ahead of their annual meeting. Perhaps they looked again at their guiding principles, We […]
Video Friday: Financial Crisis & CEO Input Into Board Selection
James McRitchie, 03/25/2011 ,
In response to growing concerns on the spread of the financial crisis, the Yale School of Management, in partnership with the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, organized a roundtable discussion in New York on September 23, 2010 that brought together business leaders and scholars from Yale, Wharton, NYU, and the Columbia and Harvard business schools […]
HP Nomination Committee Under Fire
James McRitchie, 03/16/2011 ,
I recently got this from an anonymous member (here are related thoughts from Cydney Posner and Marty Lipton): You may have seen the stories regarding ISS’ recommendation that shareholders withhold against the entire Hewlett-Packard nominating committee for the way new directors were selected. I haven’t seen the ISS report, but the news stories (eg. WSJ […]
Increased Investor Engagement
James McRitchie, 02/23/2011 ,
The first comprehensive analysis of the engagement between investors and public U.S. corporate issuers finds a notably high and increasing trend of engagement. Yet, there is a disconnect between investors and issuers in basic areas such as the time frame of engagement, the definition of a successful engagement and, by implication, what engagement itself means. “The State of Engagement […]
"Say on Pay" to be Annual
James McRitchie, 01/21/2011 ,
I believe ISS/Risk Metrics created a policy on the Frequency of Advisory Vote on Executive Compensation (Management “Say on Pay”), a new proxy item required under The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Their Recommendation: Vote FOR annual advisory votes on compensation, which provide the most consistent and clear communication channel for shareholder […]
CorpGov Bites
James McRitchie, 11/22/2010 ,
ISS Issues 2011 Policy Updates – TheCorporateCounsel.net Blog, 11/22/2010. Broc Romanek provides highlights of ISS policy changes. Dan Harris provides readers with his recent speech on Emerging Market/China Outsourcing Issues, China Law Blog, 11/21/2010. Also interesting, The China Rich….Are Not Like Us?, 11/19/2010. Jones, Renee M., Will the SEC Survive Financial Regulatory Reform? (November 18, […]
NoCal NACD and Others on 2010 Proxy Season
James McRitchie, 06/30/2010 ,
On June 29th the Northern California Chapter of the National Association for Corporate Directors held a low-cost high-quality lunch-time meeting at the headquarters of the California Chamber of Commerce. Now that we have wrapped up the 2010 Proxy Season with issues this year like executive compensation, risk management and high profile withhold campaigns for some […]
Corporate Governance Archives: July 1999
James McRitchie, 07/30/1999 ,
Stephen Davis, of Davis Global Advisors, is assembling a long-range list of global corporate governance-related conferences/workshops/events for the World Bank website and Global Proxy Watch newsletter. Please pass on the date, city, title, sponsor, location, and contact information for any such events you may know about by e-mailing smd@davisglobal.com. Please cc me at jm@corpgov.net so that I can add a select […]
Archives: October 1997
James McRitchie, 10/30/1997 ,
Stern Stewart’s EVA product got a boost when CalPERS adopted its use in creating their annual focus list. It should help CalPERS pinpoint their targets with better accuracy and may result in increasing the “CalPERS Effect.” In other CalPERS news, they voted 36% of the time against executive stock plans and 39% of the time against exec bonus plans […]