Sky Blog
Proxy advisers exercise immense influence through their voting recommendations to shareholders. Corporations, aware of the importance of those recommendations, expend valuable resources to ensure that the recommendations align with management’s preferences by hiring governance consultants to influence outcomes. These consultants …
European competitiveness: Following the results of the 2024 European elections and the release of the so-called Draghi-report, European competitiveness has emerged as a key priority and a major stewardship theme. European competitiveness is a broad theme affecting various aspects, ranging …
On February 11, 2025, Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS) announced that it will be halting consideration of certain diversity factors indefinitely when making vote recommendations with respect to the election and re-election of U.S. company directors under its Benchmark and …
Investors rely on proxy adviser recommendations to fulfill their fiduciary duty when voting in corporate elections. However, the proxy advisory industry is highly concentrated, with ISS and Glass Lewis controlling over 90 percent of the market,1 and the advice …
Our examination of the votes cast by 155 mutual funds on over 6 million corporate election items during 2004-2017 led us to a surprising conclusion: We found that Institutional Shareholder Services’ (ISS) proxy advice did not lead funds to vote …
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recently introduced Economic Value Added (EVA) as its latest approach to measuring company performance. Recent white papers from ISS, authored by Bennett Stewart (ISS Senior Advisor), who, along with former business partner Joel Stern, developed the …
At the general meeting of Tesla Inc. on June 11, 2019, two management proposals seeking to introduce shareholder-friendly changes to the company’s governance structure failed to pass, despite both items receiving support by more than 99.5 percent of votes cast …
As the busiest part of the 2019 U.S. proxy season is behind us, we take an early look at the vote results of annual general meetings convened from January to May. As of now, approximately 70 percent of Russell 3000 …
In recent years, non-executive director compensation has received attention in the U.S. Increased board workloads, shifts in director compensation structure (away from meeting fees and towards slightly larger base retainers, for instance), a few instances of shareholder litigation in relation …
Over the past three decades, shareholder proposals have transformed the corporate landscape in the U.S. by spurring the adoption of governance best practices. Annual director elections, majority vote rules for director elections, shareholder approval for poison pills, and proxy access …
The proxy season is just around the corner for calendar year public companies, and, ahead of the season, two major proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, recently released their 2019 policy updates. ISS’s 2019 policy updates…
The debate over board leadership does not seem to go away especially in the U.S. where market participants have long agreed on the need for greater independence in principle, while largely disagreeing on the measures required to put it into …
As 2018 draws to a close, both Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”) and Glass Lewis are in the process of updating their 2019 proxy voting guidelines.
In mid-October, ISS launched its 2019 benchmark voting policy consultation period, pursuant to which …
Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) appreciates the opportunity to comment in advance of the SEC Staff Roundtable on the Proxy Process that is scheduled for November 15, 2018. We focus these preliminary comments on two primary areas, proxy advisory firms …
On September 18, 2018, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) released the results of the first half of its Annual Policy Survey. The Annual Policy Survey is designed to gather feedback from stakeholders, including institutional investors, companies, corporate directors and other market …
On September 13, the SEC’s Division of Investment Management withdrew two interpretive letters issued in 2004 to Egan-Jones Proxy Services (“Egan-Jones”) and Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (“ISS”). The letters described some of the guidelines under which an investment adviser could …
On November 16, 2017, Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) issued its updated proxy voting guidelines for the upcoming 2018 proxy season. Notable updates applicable to U.S. companies include new or revised policies:
The two most influential proxy advisory firms—Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (“Glass Lewis”)—recently released their updated proxy voting guidelines for 2018. The key changes to the ISS and Glass Lewis policies are described below along with …
The two most influential proxy advisory firms–Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis)–recently released their updated proxy voting guidelines for 2017. The key changes to the ISS and Glass Lewis policies are described below along with …
In the paper, “Management Influence on Investors: Evidence from Shareholder Votes on the Frequency of Say on Pay”, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, my co-author (David Oesch of the University of St. Gallen) and I …