CPR Asset Management, a subsidiary of Crdit Agricole, has selected Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) as its exclusive provider for proxy voting services. CPR will utilise ISS’s VoteX platform for voting of all funds across both French and international markets. CPR-AM has more than 12 billion euros under management across 120 funds.
ISS says it was chosen for its ability to meet CPR-AM’s requirements to vote on funds held in custody at multiple banks around the world. “By using ISS’s voting expertise and technologically advanced platform, we can better exercise our fiduciary responsibilities without having to add costly internal resources,” explains Jean-Franois Griveaud, chief operating officer, CPR-AM. “It makes it easy to vote. It’s a systematic approach that removes the nightmare of the masses of paper involved in handling proxies.”
Through a web-based platform, VoteX allows fund managers to access all relevant meeting information including ISS’s research and voting recommendations to efficiently vote their funds around the world. Additionally, it allows the concept of Straight Through Processing (STP) to be applied to proxy voting. CPR-AM’s portfolio is automatically updated to reflect any changes. This reduces errors, minimises manual intervention and improves decision-making. Reports on voting activities can also be integrated into CPR-AM’s systems for communication back to the beneficial owner.
“Proxy management is cumbersome and made even more complex when coordinated across multiple world markets,” says Cheryl Gustitus, ISS vice president of communications. “ISS’s VoteX platform streamlines the proxy management process and allows institutions to perform fiduciary duties faster and more efficiently.”
ISS now covers over 22,000 meetings across 80 markets worldwide, providing institutional investors with meeting agendas, expert analysis and vote recommendations to make informed decisions. Agendas are captured by ISS’s procurement teams across 80 markets, translated from 20 different languages, standardised and coded to facilitate interpretation by fund managers. ISS’s research team of 25 analysts produce vote recommendations based on accepted principles of corporate governance, tailored to each market to integrate local guidelines and principles.