Among other tidbits, Jasper Street’s always-insightful Monthly Insights includes a table showing how often the Big Three’s and other select large institutional investors’ proxy votes align with ISS’s and Glass Lewis’s adverse recommendations (i.e., recommendations to vote contrary to the board’s voting recommendations) on director elections, say-on-pay, and environmental and social (E&S) shareholder proposals. On E&S shareholder proposals specifically, Fidelity leads in its votes in alignment with ISS’s recommendations (i.e., voting for 44% of proposals wherein ISS recommended a “For” vote) and trails State Street by just 1% on its alignment with Glass Lewis’s recommendations (30% Fidelity vs. 31% State Street).
The report discusses recent proxy advisor developments including Glass Lewis’s planned abandonment of its benchmark policy recommendations (which we reported on here) and ISS’s research-only services that do not include vote recommendations, and potential future implications of the trend toward customization.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!