Strive Adds Proxy Advisory Services to Financial Service Offerings

January 10, 2023 at 08:30 AM EST

Strive to disrupt historic Glass Lewis/ISS duopoly

Strive has entered its first consulting relationship with a $40BN+ Institutional Client

Today Strive announced the launch of Strive Proxy Voting and Strive Outsourced Shareholder Engagement & Proxy Voting Consulting Services (OSEP), enabling investors to vote to maximize value with a new alternative to incumbent proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis.

Institutional Shareholder Services & Glass Lewis steer the behavior of thousands of smaller asset managers – and tens of billions of dollars– to often advance ESG values, typically in lockstep with the Big Three asset managers BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. These two firms represent a duopoly by controlling near 97% of the market share of the advisory service industry. In fact, BlackRock’s new “Voting Choice” program only allows participating clients in global Separately Managed Accounts and eligible pooled vehicles to “choose” between ISS and Glass Lewis voting slates.

No major proxy advisory service until now votes shares and engages in stewardship in a strictly pro-fiduciary manner, instead of advancing progressive social and political agendas with which many individual investors disagree. Strive’s voting recommendations are made with the sole interest of maximizing the value of clients’ investment accounts, with no motivation to advance a social or political objective. Strive Proxy Voting will be available to institutional investors and wealth managers on one of the leading institutional voting platforms.

Strive will also offer outsourced shareholder engagement (OSEP) in addition to proxy voting services. OSEP will be available to institutional clients and allow asset allocators to leave their funds intact with existing asset managers, either internal or external, while partnering with Strive to represent their clients’ voices and votes as a shareholder in public companies. In less than six months of existence, Strive has helped to drive significant corporate change.

After Strive’s public engagements with Exxon and Disney, both companies made significant board and leadership changes consistent with Strive’s shareholder mandates. A complete timeline outlining Strive’s efforts to influence Exxon and Disney may be found here. Strive’s new offerings will aim to accelerate this influence.

“ISS and Glass Lewis openly embrace the same consensus political orthodoxies as the Big Three asset managers by voting their shares to advance politically contested agendas,” said Vivek Ramaswamy, Executive Chairman of Strive. “In fact, ISS recommended in favor of the 2021 Scope 3 Emissions Audit at Chevron and the 2022 racial equity audit at Apple. We launched Strive Proxy Voting and Strive Outsourced Shareholder Engagement & Proxy Voting Consulting Services to give shareholders their voice back with votes that maximize value – not advance someone else’s ‘values’.”

“The corporate proxy ballot should advance long-run value, not progressive social and political agendas,” said Justin Danhof, Head of Corporate Governance. “Strive’s sole goal is to serve our clients’ financial interests without apology, and we have every expectation that this spring’s proxy voting season will result in major changes across corporate America.”

For more information on Strive Proxy Voting and Strive Outsourced Shareholder Engagement & Proxy Voting Consulting Services (OSEP), please visit www.strive.com/ourservices.

Strive Proxy Voting will be available on Broadridge Financial Solutions’ institutional voting platform, ProxyEdge®

About Strive: Strive is an Ohio-based firm whose mission is to restore the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics. The company was co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks in 2022. Learn more at www.strive.com.