The Advisors' Blog

‘Tis the season…for updating off-season peer groups. ISS announced yesterday that their peer group submission window will be open from 9 am ET on Tuesday, July 6th until 8 pm ET on Friday, July 16th – for companies that have annual meetings slated to be held between September 16, 2021 and January 31, 2022. Here’s more detail:

As part of ISS’ peer group construction process, on a semi-annual basis, corporations are requested to submit changes they have made to their self-selected peer groups for their next proxy disclosure. ISS considers companies’ self-selected peer groups as an important input as part of its own peer group construction methodology.

Submissions should reflect peer companies used (or to be used) by the submitting company for pay-setting for the fiscal year ending prior to the company’s next upcoming annual meeting.

If you haven’t made any changes to your peer group, or you don’t want to provide the info in advance, you aren’t required to participate. That just means that ISS will automatically factor into its methodology the peers that you disclosed in your last proxy statement.

Meanwhile, Equilar’s peer group submission window is open through tomorrow – Wednesday, June 30th – targeting companies that file their proxy statement between July 15, 2021 and January 14, 2022. Institutional investors’ voting policies often say that they incorporate a third-party analysis to verify company peer groups, and some use Equilar’s research for that. The portal re-opens in December for spring filings (and any changes submitted after June 30th will be incorporated in that update).

– Liz Dunshee