Florida board makes some changes to its proxy voting and governance fields
The Florida State Board of Administration (FSBA) has named four finalists for providing the board with general corporate governance research and proxy voting, said John Kuczwanski, communications manager. They are Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Glass Lewis, Proxy Governance and Broadridge Financial Solutions. Kuczwanski says the board is expected to make a decision by December 9th.
As for specialized corporate governance research services, the top four finalists are the Corporate Library, GovernanceMetrics (GMI), Audit Integrity and F&C Investments. There is currently no set date for making this decision.
These picks were made prior to the merger of Audit Integrity with The Corporate Library and Governance Metrics, which was announced last Thursday. The board says it does not plan to formally address the merger. Indeed, Kuczwanski says board members are analyzing each of the proposals from the three pre-merger firms individually, while factoring in their new function as a single entity. ‘We knew about merger plans between The Corporate Library and GovernanceMetrics,' he said, 'but were not made aware of the ongoing negotiations with Audit Integrity.'
Right now, the administrators are using the service of ISS, Glass Lewis and Proxy Governance, who are the board’s primary providers of corporate governance research as well as proxy research and advice on individual company proposals. For specialized corporate governance research, FSBA's current suppliers are The Corporate Library, Equilar, Conflict Risk Network, IW Financial and Jantzi-Sustainalytics, according to Pensions & Investments.
On the flip side, many of the firm’s existing contract with FSBA are set to expire at the end of this year, however, they were all granted the permission to rebid in the search, said Kuczwanski.
