The Advisors' Blog

As Dave shared on Friday on TheCorporateCounsel.net, State Street Investment Management (formerly known as State Street Global Advisors), which has over $5.6 trillion in assets under management, has published its 2026 Global Proxy Voting and Engagement Policy.

This year, State Street is spelling out a say-on-pay factor that looks at relative total shareholder return as compared to a company’s GICS sector. Relative TSR was something State Street considered in practice – for example, see this Q1 2025 stewardship report – but now the policy is clearer.

Other than that, the say-on-pay aspect of the policy is unchanged from last year. Here’s the full explanation of how State Street will evaluate say-on-pay resolutions:

We consider it the board’s responsibility to determine the appropriate level of executive compensation. Despite the differences among the possible types of plans and awards, there is a simple underlying philosophy that guides our analysis of executive compensation: we believe that there should be a direct relationship between executive compensation and company performance over the long term.

Shareholders should have the opportunity to assess whether pay structures and levels are aligned with business performance. When assessing remuneration reports, we consider factors such as adequate disclosure of various remuneration elements, absolute and relative pay levels, peer selection and benchmarking, the mix of long-term and short-term incentives, alignment of pay structures with shareholder interests, as well as with corporate strategy and performance.

For example, criteria we may consider include the following:

• The company’s financial performance relative to its GICS sector, based on a total shareholder
return metric

• Overall quantum relative to company performance

• Vesting periods and length of performance targets

• Mix of performance, time and options based stock units

• Use of special grants and one-time awards

• Retesting and repricing features

• Disclosure and transparency

Members can visit our “Investor Voting Policies” Practice Area for a handy library of institutional investor and asset manager policies.

– Liz Dunshee