Yesterday, ISS opened its “Annual Policy Survey.” In recent years, ISS used a 2-part survey, with a relatively high-level “governance principles survey” accompanied by a more granular “policy application survey.” This year, ISS is using a single survey with a more limited number of questions. ISS may have streamlined the process, but this excerpt addressing the topics covered in the survey shows that they’ve still covered quite a bit of ground:
“Topics this year cover a broad range of issues, including: board gender diversity, director over-boarding, and director accountability relating to climate change risk, globally; combined chairman and CEO posts and the sun-setting of multi-class capital structures in the U.S.; the discharge of directors and board responsiveness to low support for remuneration proposals in Europe; and the use of Economic Value Added (EVA) in ISS’ quantitative pay-for-performance, financial-performance-analysis secondary screen for companies in the U.S. and Canada.”
As always, this is the first step for ISS as it formulates its 2020 voting policies. In addition to the survey, ISS will gather input via regionally-based, topic-specific roundtables & calls. Interested market participants will also have an opportunity to comment on the final proposed changes to the policies.
-John Jenkins, TheCorporateCounsel.net July 23,2019
