San Francisco (Aug. 8, 2005) — Glass, Lewis & Co., the leading independent investment research and proxy advisory firm, serving institutions that collectively manage more than $8 trillion, today announced it will launch in the fall the Glass Lewis Global Vote Management Service, a turnkey global proxy voting and compliance management solution.
The new service will help institutional investors worldwide to effectively fulfill proxy voting responsibilities by enabling guideline development; client account set-up and custodian interaction; proxy analysis and decision making; custom policy implementation; electronic vote submission; record- keeping; auditing; reporting; Form NPX creation and web hosting. The service is built upon a new technology platform that supports global institutions of all sizes and complete or partial outsourcing of proxy voting processes.
In developing the service, Glass Lewis received input from an investor advisory committee that includes some of the world’s largest investment managers, mutual fund families, pension funds and hedge funds. The result of this comprehensive requirements gathering process is a solution designed to meet the evolving needs of institutional investors, with features and functions, such as customizable management tools, that are not currently available in the marketplace.
With its headquarters in San Francisco, Glass Lewis assembled a team of some of Silicon Valley’s most experienced database and transaction processing engineers to build the platform over the past year. The development team is led by a 20-year veteran of the transaction processing business who previously served as the chief technology officer of a public company that accurately processed more than 10 million business-to-business electronic transactions a day.
“We will bring to institutional investors a fully customizable and auditable solution that achieves a new standard in reliability and transparency,” said Gregory P. Taxin, the Chief Executive Officer of Glass Lewis. “Our technology and processes are state-of-the-art and the Global Vote Management Service will be as revolutionary in its market as our research services have been in their markets.”
Glass Lewis’ proxy research today covers more than 8,000 public companies in 52 countries. With the launch of the Global Vote Management Service, Glass Lewis will cover all securities in its customers’ global portfolios. Glass Lewis expects its coverage universe to grow to at least 12,000 companies in 65 countries for the upcoming season.
“Our team of experienced analysts from around the world is unmatched in skill and insight,” said Lynn E. Turner, Managing Director of Research for Glass Lewis and the former Chief Accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “No other proxy research firm has the fierce independence and professional depth of our team.”
In addition to integrating its proxy research into the new Global Vote Management Service platform, Glass Lewis will continue to make its proxy research available on its own research distribution portal ( http://www.proxypaper.com/ ) and through third-party research delivery platforms, proxy voting agents and proxy delivery services.
Glass Lewis will demonstrate the features of the Global Vote Management Service’s technology platform at the meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills on September 28-30.
About Glass Lewis
Glass, Lewis & Co. is the leading, independent investment research and proxy advisory firm, serving institutions that collectively manage more than $8 trillion. Glass Lewis helps institutional investors make more informed investment and proxy voting decisions by identifying business, legal, governance and financial statement risks at more than 8,000 companies worldwide. For more information, go to /.
Web site: http://www.proxypaper.com/
Web site: /
CONTACT: Loren Schaffzin of Glass, Lewis & Co., +1-415-678-4119, orlschaffzin@glasslewis.com