Products March 29, 2006

ISS Helps Smaller Public Funds Act Big

March 29, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), provider of corporate governance and proxy voting services, has introduced a new proxy voting policy designed specifically for small and mid-size public pension funds and their investment managers.
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The new Public Fund Policy allows small and mid-size funds and their managers to vote proxies in a manner consistent with the guidelines typically followed by larger state funds that have the resources to design and deploy their own custom voting policies, according to the announcement.   The new policy guidelines reflect the viewpoints of the public fund community on major corporate governance issues from director elections to executive compensation.

In addition, the announcement said, the policy takes into consideration public fund views on issues such as:

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  • majority vote standard,
  • classified boards,
  • performance-based equity awards,
  • voting power dilution,
  • ratification of auditors,
  • corporate social responsibility,
  • terrorism states, and
  • matters impacting the global good.

All proxy research and vote recommendations are delivered through ISS’ Governance Analytics platform.

ISS incorporated input from more than forty public plan sponsors that participated in two different ISS policy surveys, and sought additional guidance on certain issues from several recognized public funds known for their leadership in corporate governance, in developing the new policy.

More information can be obtained at www.issproxy.com .

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