On February 18, 2014, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a leading proxy advisory firm, will launch the second generation of its QuickScore governance risk scoring system and analytical tool for Russell 3000 companies. Version 2.0 will include seven new, as yet unidentified, governance factors as well as modified weightings, all to be announced on January 27, 2014. In addition, the new version will monitor certain regulatory filings and other disclosures on an ongoing basis for governance-related information and automatically update QuickScores. According to ISS, the updated version will “better align with company performance quantitative modeling results and ISS voting policy.” Version 2.0 will continue to score companies on an overall basis and on four separate “pillars”: board, compensation/remuneration, shareholder rights and audit.
Prior to the launch, companies will have access to a verification site to preview and verify the data used to calculate their scores from 9:00 a.m. EST on Monday, January 27, 2014 through 8:00 p.m. EST on Friday, February 7, 2014. Companies will also have the opportunity to request changes. ISS has indicated that it will review and respond to all such requests. After the February 18, 2014 launch, the data verification site will remain available for updating and re-verifying QuickScore data throughout the year.
