Investors Want Pay Info From Execs, not RiskMetrics

In case you missed IR magazine executive editor Neil Stewart's say-on-pay coverage last week, make sure to check it out here:

The Shareholder Forum lets some companies in on phase two of its survey



January 19, 2010

The Shareholder Forum is kicking off the next phase in its crusade to uncover the criteria and information sources that investors want to use when voting on executive compensation. This time several companies are being invited to include their own sub-samples of shareholders and compare their results against the main sample of institutional investors.



Phase one of the Shareholder Forum's say-on-pay survey, which was sent to a range of professional investors including members of the New York Society of Security Analysts and the Council of Institutional Investors, cast up two clear and somewhat surprising conclusions when the results were announced in December: Most investors want to know what directors have done to align executive pay with corporate strategy rather than whether it conforms with guidelines from third-party experts; and they want to get facts and explanations straight from management rather than from proxy advisers like RiskMetrics.