National Association of Pension Funds and Institutional Shareholder Services announce end of corporate governance services licensing agreement
09 October 2013
Joint Corporate Governance Services Licensing Agreement Ends June 2014
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), the voice of workplace pensions in the U.K., and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of corporate governance solutions to the global financial community, announced today that their joint licensing agreement on U.K. corporate governance services will not be extended when the present arrangements expire on 29 June 2014. Until that date, the NAPF and ISS will continue to work together, although each organisation will conduct its company engagement separately.
“The long-standing relationship with ISS has been of real benefit to many NAPF members, as well as to the wider corporate governance community,” said Joanne Segars, NAPF Chief Executive. “Despite the ending of the agreement both the NAPF and ISS will continue to work together when appropriate for the benefit of NAPF members and all other interested market constituents.”
“ISS’ standard benchmark policy for the U.K. will continue to refer to the best practice principles established by the NAPF. We remain committed to providing the best possible corporate governance services for our clients,” said Stephen Harvey, Head of ISS. “The end of the agreement will provide further clarity to market constituents over the different roles of the NAPF and ISS respectively, especially with regard to company engagement meetings.”
The joint NAPF/ISS licensing agreement began in 2006 and will automatically expire on 29 June 2014, the end of its eight-year term. From July 2014, ISS will no longer use the RREV brand in the U.K. denoting the former NAPF/ISS partnership.
Notes to editors:
1. About NAPF
The NAPF is the leading voice of workplace pensions in the UK. It speaks for 1,300 pension schemes with some 16 million members and assets of around £900 billion. NAPF members also include over 400 businesses providing essential services to the pensions sector.
2. About ISS
ISS, founded in 1985 as Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., is the world's leading provider of proxy advisory and corporate governance solutions to financial market participants. ISS' services include objective proxy research and analysis, end-to-end proxy voting and distribution solutions, turnkey securities class-action claims management, and reliable governance data and modeling tools. More than 1,700 clients rely on ISS' expertise to help them make informed corporate governance decisions. ISS is located in financial centers worldwide and is a subsidiary of MSCI Inc., a leading provider of investment decision support tools to investors globally. For more information, please visit www.issgovernance.com.
NAPF media contact:
Dee Sullivan 020 7601 1717 or 07917 506683
[email protected]
ISS media contact:
Sarah Ball +44 (0)20 7618 2275
[email protected]
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