Two years ago, our landmark Pension Politics report revealed that too many giant investment firms were following the terrible advice of the two major proxy voting advisory firms – ISS and Glass-Lewis. They almost always recommended “yes” votes on the most egregious ESG/DEI resolutions – a clear violation of their fiduciary duty to their clients.

This week, Glass Lewis (one of the two dominant shareholder advisory firms) has decided to get out of the moralizing business.  Semafor reports that it will instead focus on helping investors in handling regulatory reporting and providing research. Glass Lewis’ pivot may have been influenced by JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon, who called it and ISS “incompetent” at a BlackRock event last month, and accused them of contributing to a regulatory environment that is “driving companies out of the public market.”

We at Unleash Prosperity are proud to help cast the first spotlight on the negative role that proxy firms have been playing in misadvising investment companies to go for woke shareholder resolutions instead of pursuing maximum returns for the shareholders, whose money they invest.

We’ve come a long way, baby.