Bearing in mind that the first institutional investor recently announced it has stopped using proxy advisors, check out this six-page recap of an investor survey from CII (also see these investor poll results) from last summer that reveals a bunch of stats about how investors feel about proxy advisors. Here are a few nuggets:
- A majority of investors ranked “Research and analysis” as the most valuable part of research reports followed by “Efficiency and standardization of information” with no investor choosing “Voting recommendations.”
- Nearly 70% of respondents opposed further regulation of proxy advisors.
- 64% review a proposal more closely if the proxy advisor(s) recommends voting against it.
- 76% said their proxy voting costs would substantially increase without the ability to use proxy advisors.
- 48% said that proxy advisors should provide more “conflict of interest” disclosure.
- 62% said that proxy advisors shouldn’t give companies the opportunity to review and provide comments on reports prior to publishing the reports to investors.
