In advance of the 2017/2018 proxy season, the CGI Glass Lewis team has updated the Guidelines for the Australian and New Zealand markets.
While our voting policies remain largely unchanged, we aimed to increase the transparency around our assessment of the director skills and criteria we apply. In terms of gender diversity, we are focusing on initiatives to increase the number of female executives and gender ratios across the board, executive KMP and total workforce for the past three years for all ASX 300 companies. And with the rising number of companies looking to adopt new and unique remuneration structures, we will also continue to look for additional cogent disclosure regarding the appropriateness of those structures, performance measures (if any) chosen under executive remuneration incentive plans, and mechanisms to prevent excessive vesting in years of poor shareholder experience.
The main revision for the New Zealand Guidelines relates to the release of the new NZX Corporate Governance Code (“the new Code”), to replace the existing Best Practice Code on October 1, 2017. The new Code has focused on four areas which have gained increased importance for investors in recent years: (1) Diversity, (2) Director and executive remuneration reporting requirements, (3) Environmental, social and governance reporting, and (4) Health and safety risk management. In terms of executive remuneration, the new Code will require the New Zealand listed entities to disclose the remuneration arrangements in place for the CEO in its annual report, including disclosure of short and long-term incentives and the performance criteria used to determine performance based payments.
Access Glass Lewis Policy Guidelines:
Glass Lewis’ Policy Guidelines are available to download from our website.
Clients can also access guidelines via Viewpoint, using the “Guidelines” link in the navigation at the bottom of any page; or via glasslewis.net, from the Guidelines section. Or simply email your dedicated Client Services contact to let us know which markets you’re interested in, and we’ll be happy to send them along!