The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has bought investment research and governance services provider Glass, Lewis & Co. for US$46 million.
It acquired the San Francisco-based firm from Xinhua Finance Limited of Shanghai.
“Corporate governance has always been an important issue for institutional investors like Teachers’,” says Brian Gibson, the pension fund’s senior vice-president, public equities. “The investment in Glass Lewis ensures that investors will have an impartial, expert source of information on corporate governance, accounting and legal issues at public companies for years to come.”
Teachers’ will be involved at the board level for strategy development, not in the day-to-day management of the company. Also, Glass Lewis’s operations will remain separate from the pension fund’s.
He added that Glass Lewis, the second largest agency of its kind in the world, will continue to market its research and proxy voting services internationally to all members of the money management and institutional investment industries.
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