A FTSE SMALL CAP Company Secretary & General Counsel writes...
I wanted to ask who pays to access Glass Lewis reports. We get sent ISS, IVIS (and for what it’s worth, PIRC) reports to review and comment on, but we can’t see Glass Lewis unless we subscribe at a cost of thousands of pounds. I object to having to pay to review a report they’ve written about us for their subscribers as I believe it should be the users of those reports that pay, not the issuer. What is worse is that their sales people then hound everyone they can on a daily basis.
Am I being unreasonable? Do others just swallow the cost and pay to see the report?
The comment in the question says it all:
“I object to having to pay to review a report they’ve written about us for their subscribers as I believe it should be the users of those reports that pay, not the issuer. ”
That is precisely my view – it is a rip-off to be asked to pay for a “report” that is based on information you provide!
My other tip is to be on friendly terms with someone who does get GL reports (e.g. a remuneration consultant0 – obviously they cannot disclose a report but they can tell you if there’s anything interesting in it
We get the ISS free. Not the others. We wouldn’t pay. But our circumstances are maybe a little different than others (closely held shareholder base).
We do pay the basic subscription but I think you have to review and only pay if it works for you. It can be helpful when you have contentious resolutions to deal with and depending on the composition of your register.
No we don’t pay Glass Lewis. Few, if any, of our institutional shareholders are guided by them. We have always objected to paying for a report that i) is based on information that originates from us, and ii) we don’t have to pay for similar reports from ISS, IVIS/IA and PIRC.
I used to pay for a Glass Lewis report when I worked as Deputy for a FTSE 100, but now I am Cosec for am AIM company I do not see any benefit, unless you have a particular issue you need to monitor the general view. I work on the basis that our compliance explanation in the Annual report is transparent. Other matters are all advised by ISS/investors.
We pay for the Glass Lewis report, but this is largely due to unique/specific shareholding requirements we maintain. In previous roles, some purchased Glass Lewis and others did not.
In my experience it only tends to be worth purchasing if you’re concerned you might lose any shareholder votes at the AGM and need to do some shareholder engagement beforehand.
If your resolutions are pretty BAU and you’re unlikely to face any significant opposition, it’s probably not worth purchasing.