Mandate Entitled Studying Shareholder Voting Rights for Emerging Market Equities

Rockville, MD; April 12, 2012 – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of end-to-end corporate governance solutions, today announced the completion of a study for the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan on certain impediments to the effective exercise of shareholder voting rights in the region covered by the MSCI Emerging Market Index.  The GPIF commissioned ISS to perform the study in the Fall of 2011.  The study is part of the GPIF’s efforts to examine how voting rights are being exercised for non-Japanese equities.

“This study is an important examination of voting rights for emerging market equities,” said Kazuya Nagasawa, Representative Director of ISS Japan K.K.  “Our goal was to conduct a comprehensive and objective analysis on shareholder voting rights across the emerging markets in the Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia regions, as the GPIF is conscious of the importance of corporate governance and proxy voting for the maximization of long-term shareholder value.”

The GPIF is the world’s largest governmental pension fund with assets under management of over 108 trillion Japanese Yen, 94 trillion of which is managed in equity and fixed income markets.  The GPIF invests and manages the reserve funds of the Employees’ Pension Insurance and National Pension system in Japan.  The government pension system has been incorporated into the society and the national economy of Japan as a social basis to support the life of the people.  The GPIF was originally established in 1961 as the Pension Welfare Service Public Corporation, started investment activity in 1986, and changed its status in 2006 to an independent administrative institute.

For further information about the GPIF, please visit: www.gpif.go.jp.

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