Service Will Be Piloted in Spring 2019 for U.S. Company Annual General Meetings
SAN FRANCISCO (14 March 2019) – Glass Lewis, the leading independent provider of global governance and engagement support services, today announced the launch of a new Report Feedback Statement (RFS) service.
The RFS service provides a unique opportunity for the subjects of Glass Lewis’ proxy research to submit feedback about the analysis of their proposals, and have those comments delivered directly to Glass Lewis’ investor clients. Corporate issuers and shareholder proponents alike will be eligible to participate in this service and will provide their statements directly to Glass Lewis’ research and engagement team, which will in turn distribute them to Glass Lewis’ clients within its research and voting platforms.
Glass Lewis’ clients will benefit by conveniently receiving unfiltered commentary on our analysis from the subject company or shareholder proponents. That real-time perspective will provide an additional dimension for their consideration and will be easily accessible, with reasonable time to review, even within the peak of proxy season.
“Glass Lewis has long been an advocate of bringing transparency, accuracy and efficiency to the proxy voting process,” said Katherine Rabin, CEO of Glass Lewis. “Following the widespread success of our direct engagement efforts and the Issuer Data Report service we introduced in 2015, the RFS service is an important next step in facilitating informed dialogue among all stakeholders. At the most relevant point in our clients’ proxy voting process, they will have a new way to directly access the perspective of the company and shareholder proponents who submitted the proposals they are examining.”
The 2019 proxy season will serve as a pilot for the RFS service, which will be provided for a limited number of annual general meetings at U.S.-listed issuers. The goal will be to broaden participation after the 2019 proxy season, including introducing the service across several markets globally.
“We are grateful for the feedback from a variety of industry leaders and groups that resulted in the creation of this service, and will be excited to learn from the responses of the users,” said Ms. Rabin.
To learn more about the RFS service, please visit: www.glasslewis.com/report-feedback-statement.
About Glass Lewis
Glass Lewis, the leading independent provider of global governance services, helps institutional investors understand and connect with companies they invest in. We are a trusted ally of 1,300 investors globally who use our high-quality, unbiased Proxy Paper research, industry-leading Viewpoint proxy vote management solution, and innovative Meetyl direct-engagement platform to drive value across the entire life cycle of their investments. More information available at www.glasslewis.com.