GMI is an independent corporate governance research and rating agency. As such, subscriptions to our service represent our principal source of revenue. Initial subscribers include institutional investors, including pension funds and fund managers of all sizes. However, over the last three years our ratings and research reports have also attracted the interest of corporations, law and accounting firms, proxy solicitors, insurance underwriters, central banks, regulatory agencies and others. In due course we expect to enable registered investment advisers to also benefit from our research.

There is no charge to a corporation for a GMI Rating. Companies are rated by GMI based on their inclusion in a market index followed by GMI such as the MSCI EAFE, Russell 1000 or S&P 500 Index, among others. Companies rated by GMI are always able to learn their rating at no cost each time we release new ratings and can purchase a subscription to GMI's research services just as institutional investors do.

Annual subscriptions for GMI's corporate governance rating services are available on three levels: by geographic region (e.g., companies rated by GMI in North America, Europe or the Asia-Pacific region), by market sector or industry group (e.g., Healthcare) or, for smaller institutions, through customized portfolio coverage. Subscriptions include two seat licenses. Additional seat licenses and customized delivery and research options are available for an additional fee.

The research and rating system developed by GMI has been successfully helping institutional investors worldwide assess the governance characteristics of individual companies for the last five years. We've found a consistent relationship between governance and performance, and have been able to point out governance weaknesses before events unfolded publicly at a number of high profile companies.

With risk management once again a major market concern, GMI recently introduced a new service for investors interested in a high-level assessment of their portfolio holdings, including signatories to the rapidly expanding Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). Working from a holdings list, GMI will prepare a high level assessment to help you understand whether your portfolio holdings are in line with the norm or not.

This new service has already shown to be of value to institutional investors of all types, including plan sponsors looking to understand how various fund managers address governance issues, and by investment managers and mutual funds looking to incorporate the results in their marketing material. Please click here if you would like to see more detail on GMI's new governance assessment service. Please contact us if you are interested in receiving a free, no-obligation analysis of your current holdings.

Each GMI rating report includes a summary of the company's overall governance profile and commentary on each of the six research categories employed by GMI:

In addition to an overall GMI rating, each of the six research categories receives a separate rating. These are meant to help subscribers see where a company is particularly strong or weak. As an additional tool, GMI provides a "red flag" service to alert subscribers about a governance issue that has the potential to affect shareholder value.

Each report includes a rating history for both the company and its industry in order to see how each company's governance practices change over time in relation to its peers. GMI rating reports also include summary statistics for the board of directors, including the average age, tenure and number of other public company board seats held by directors. Each of the three key board committees - audit, compensation and nomination/governance - are profiled as is each member of the board. Each director profile includes a classification as either independent or non-independent according to GMI guidelines and an explanation when directors are classified as non-independent.

Click here to view Sample Report

In response to client requests, GMI has developed an innovative system to analyze the relationship between CEO pay and company performance.

As of September 25, 2007, GMI Rating Reports for US companies include a Pay Alignment Ranking^SM and Summary CEO Compensation Report. The Pay Alignment Ranking^SM better enables investors to identify the outliers within each sector and evaluate how well CEO compensation tracks company performance over a three-year period. Please click here for a description of the methodology used to determine the Pay Alignment Ranking^SM and the adjustments made to reported compensation in our Summary CEO Compensation Reports.

Starting November 10, 2009, GMI Pay Alignment Rankings^SM and Summary CEO Compensation Reports are also available as a stand-alone service for investors, companies and advisers whose primary focus is executive remuneration.

Please click here to see a sample Pay Alignment Ranking^SM and Summary CEO Compensation Report or contact GMI for further details.

GMI issues red flags whenever there is a significant governance issue or other issue of concern that might potentially affect shareholder value. While flags may be attached to one or more research categories, companies with three or more flags are rare. Red flags are assigned when GMI publishes its scheduled quarterly rating releases, and in between the scheduled releases, on an as needed basis.

Please click here to see what types of events could trigger a flag.

GMI re-rates all companies in its universe on a quarterly basis. In between these scheduled rating cycles, GMI monitors each company in its research universe on a daily basis and posts company-specific Updates on the GMI subscriber site in order to keep subscribers apprised of new governance developments at the companies covered by GMI.

If a company has gone through a major restructuring or governance overhaul in between a scheduled ratings cycle, we will consider updating the company's profile and rating it as a one-off. GMI also posts new red flags on our subscriber site to highlight significant new developments when events so warrant. In these cases, GMI notifies subscribers by means of an e-Alert as well as posting the information on the GMI subscriber site.

While GMI Rating Reports and Updates remain at the core of our service, based on client feedback, in 2007 we introduced new portfolio screening tools to help our clients focus their research efforts with more insight.

After logging onto the GMI subscriber site users see two features at the top of the main Ratings Table: "Export GMI Ratings" and "Export Key Metrics". The GMI Ratings file includes all of the numeric ratings and red flag indicators you are familiar with. The Key Metric file provides the actual Yes, No or Not Disclosed status for over 70 significant metrics that are used to calculate the numeric GMI ratings.

Users are able to select the specific file format they prefer (Excel, tab or pipe-delimited), the universe of companies to screen against (e.g., French banks, all companies in the UK, the S&P 500, and so on), and the specific ratings, red flag indicators and key metrics that will be used to generate the files.

All standard subscriptions include two logins to the GMI subscriber site, allowing users to sort, read, download and print GMI Rating Reports and Updates.

e-Alerts are sent via e-mail to notify subscribers about new developments that lead GMI to re-rate or add a new red flag to a rated company.

GMI rating data files are delivered by e-mail on a mutually agreeable basis.

Subscribers with a large number of internal users, or those who want to receive changes to GMI rating data files on a daily basis, may add an FTP delivery option to any standard subscription package. With FTP delivery, GMI works with your technical team to provide direct delivery of GMI Rating Reports, Updates and / or rating data files to your own internal research environment, bypassing the need for multiple user logins and passwords.

GMI will provide contracted advisory services on corporate governance matters to statutory bodies, stock exchanges, regulatory agencies and professional associations such as institutes of directors. We will also provide services to institutional investors who might desire customized ratings packages or specialized research.

We will not provide corporate governance consulting services to any company that is part of our research universe or is expected to become part of that universe within twelve months. To do so would in our opinion impinge on our reputation for independence and credibility. We will however, provide consulting services to private companies, associations, charitable organizations and other non-profit groups, or public corporations that because of their modest size may never be part of our ratings universe.

Please call + 1 212 949 1313 or email us for more information about GMI products and services. You can also write us at: GovernanceMetrics International, Inc., One Exchange Plaza, 55 Broadway, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10006.