Glass Lewis And Equilar Partner to Improve Corporate Governance

SAN FRANCISCO and REDWOOD CITY, California, February 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

- Industry Leaders Join Forces to Increase Transparency in the Area of Say-on-Pay

Glass, Lewis & Co., the leading independent governance services firm and Equilar Inc., the leader in executive compensation benchmarking, today announced a strategic partnership to provide institutional investors and corporate issuers with enhanced analysis of executive compensation and corporate governance matters. As part of the partnership, Glass Lewis' Proxy Paper research will be available to corporate issuers via the Equilar platform. In addition, Glass Lewis is working with Equilar to integrate Equilar's "market-based peer groups" and realizable pay data into Glass Lewis' new version of the Glass Lewis P4P, a proprietary analysis of pay for performance at public companies.

Since 2003, Glass Lewis has helped investor clients identify the outliers in the area of pay for performance through the evaluation of the linkage between executive compensation and corporate performance relative to peers. Glass Lewis' industry-leading P4P model examines seven indicators of shareholder wealth and business performance (stock price change, change in book value per share, change in operating cash flow, EPS growth, total shareholder return, return on equity; and return on assets) and analyzes two compensation data points (the chief executive's total compensation and the top five executives' total compensation). Each of these nine metrics is compared against those of the company's peers to create a weighted-average executive compensation score and a weighted-average performance score.

Among the key enhancements to Glass Lewis' P4P will be the incorporation of market-based peer groups developed using Equilar's algorithm for analyzing publicly-disclosed relationships among thousands of companies in order to create a network of the strongest peers. Factors that determine connection strength include: direction of peer relationships, similarity between peer groups, number of connecting paths between two companies and distance of connecting paths between two companies.

"I am very excited about the partnership with Equilar," said Katherine Rabin, Chief Executive Officer of Glass Lewis. "Through broader access to our analysis and the incorporation of Equilar's peer groups into our P4P model, we look forward to helping investors and corporate issuers improve their engagement processes."

During the 2012 main proxy season, Glass Lewis will complete the beta phase of its enhanced P4P model. For meetings on or after July 1, 2012, Glass Lewis' Proxy Paper reports will include the new, enhanced version of P4P analysis featuring peer groups derived from the Equilar algorithm.

"By providing our clients with Glass Lewis' Proxy Paper research, we are increasing the level of transparency, understanding, and engagement that is critical to improving corporate governance," said David Chun, CEO and Founder of Equilar. "This partnership is a step forward for both companies, and for the industry as a whole."

A full description of the partnership and benefits will be discussed on a Proxy Talk conference call jointly hosted by Glass Lewis and Equilar on February, 22 2012 at 1:00 pm ET.  

For more information on Glass, Lewis & Co. and Equilar, or if interested in attending the aforementioned proxy talk, please contact:

Jaron Schneider, +1-415-738-4115, jschneider@glasslewis.com; http://www.glasslewis.com
Nick Ezzo, +1-650-241-6677, nezzo@equilar.com; http://www.equilar.com

About Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC

Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC is a leading independent governance services and investment research firm, serving institutional investors worldwide that collectively manage more than $15 trillion in assets. Glass Lewis supports the creation and preservation of long-term shareholder value through high-quality, objective analysis of governance, finance, accounting, legal, political and regulatory risks at tens of thousands of public companies across the globe, and provides leading-edge vote management technology and diligent client service. Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Ireland, and Australia.

About Equilar, Inc.

Equilar's award-winning product suite is the gold standard for benchmarking and tracking executive compensation, board compensation, equity grants and award policies and compensation practices.

Equilar products and custom research services enable corporations, nonprofits, human capital consulting firms, law firms, investors, individual executives, and the media to accurately compare pay packages across thousands of public and nonprofit companies using SEC, Form 990, and proprietary survey data.

Equilar's research is cited frequently by Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other leading media outlets. Equilar (Redwood City, CA) has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America by Deloitte, Inc. magazine, and the Silicon Valley Business Journal.