Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) is expanding the metrics its uses to assess pay-for-performance at companies in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.
U.S.-based proxy advisory firm on Tuesday announced a series of changes to its methodology for assessing compensation models. Historically, ISS has relied on total shareholder return (TSR) as the key metric for evaluating corporate performance in the context of executive compensation. Starting Feb. 1, 2017, ISS will add relative evaluations of return on equity, return on assets, return on invested capital, revenue growth, EBITDA growth, and growth in cash flow (from operations).
“The inclusion of these six financial metrics will provide our clients a more robust analysis when gauging executive compensation relative to company performance at portfolio companies,” said Roy Saliba, head of global compensation products at ISS, in a news release.
“Against the backdrop of a rapidly shifting landscape for executive pay, we are committed to providing our clients with the most comprehensive pay-related analytics and responding to the evolving needs of the marketplace,” he added.
The changes to ISS methodology follows feedback that the firm received from institutional investors, companies, and other market players, as part of its global benchmark policy survey, which was “highly supportive” of using additional metrics beyond TSR for pay-for-performance evaluations.