Establishes New Feedback Review Board
Rockville, MD: March 29, 2012 – Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a leading provider of end-to-end corporate governance solutions, today announced that it has established a new Feedback Review Board, setting a new high water mark for transparency, openness and responsiveness.
The new ISS Feedback Review Board (FRB) is designed to serve as a conduit for investors, issuers and various market constituents to communicate with ISS. It is intended as a complement to, not a replacement for, the established channels for engagement with ISS, many of which have been in place for the greater part of a decade.
ISS’ research team engages with hundreds of companies, institutional investors, shareholder proponents and corporate advisors each year, through both in-person meetings and analyst conference calls. Setting a new standard, ISS initiated its highly inclusive annual pre-season policy survey and open comment period in 2005, has maintained an online verification tool for governance data since 2004 and has long been offering draft analyses to S&P 500 companies prior to issuing its final vote recommendations.
ISS also operates a dedicated U.S. Research HelpDesk, staffed by full-time employees who respond to policy questions and requests for policy interpretations; direct inquiries to specific analysts and address a variety of other research related matters that arise before, during and after proxy season.
“Effective engagement is an ISS hallmark that sets us far apart from other proxy advisory firms,” said Gary Retelny, President of ISS. “We already are committed to regular engagement as part of the research process and through our new Feedback Review Board, we can offer an additional and expanded level of interaction between ISS and all market constituencies.”
The FRB is led by Mr. Retelny and meets regularly to review submissions. Submissions may be made through this link.
