Online Tools to Help Investors Meet Demands of Stewardship
ROCKVILLE, MD (December 13, 2016) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of governance and responsible investment solutions to the global financial community, today announced the launch of a new engagement solution designed to assist institutional investors in facilitating and monitoring engagement activity across their portfolio companies.
To streamline investor workflow management, ISS’ new online tools will enhance engagement monitoring, screening and support activities by aiding investors in the identification of companies and topics for pre- or post-investment engagement. Additionally, users will be able to maintain a library of engagement tags or topics, to which health indicators can be assigned, to better track and measure engagements and to run diagnostics at the portfolio level. Subscribers also will be able to manage their company contacts and customize contact lists according to various criteria.
Subscriber-branded websites, an additional feature of the solution, integrate with an institutional subscriber’s corporate governance website and allow issuers and other market participants to submit engagement requests directly to a subscriber’s designated governance professionals. Institutions can access the new engagement tools either as part of a ProxyExchange subscription or on a stand-alone basis.
“With this release, we are pleased to be able to meet the needs of institutions who have seen their engagement-related workloads grow exponentially as stewardship, say-on-pay and other drivers spur investor-corporate dialogue,” said Marija Kramer, ISS’ Head of Global Product Development.
Against the backdrop of the PRI Reporting Framework and the promulgation of stewardship codes globally, today’s asset managers and owners are expected to follow best practice standards for managing and reporting on their engagement programs.
