RiskMetrics announces governance-related risk assessment tool
RiskMetrics Group recently announced the introduction of a successor tool to the Corporate Governance Quotient (CGQ), known as Governance Risk Indicators (GRId). GRId is intended "to help investors better assess the level of governance-related risk at portfolio companies."
The GRId methodology is based on 60 to 80 questions for each market pertaining to four governance categories: (i) board; (ii) audit; (iii) compensation/remuneration; and (iv) shareholder rights. The evaluations of risk will be derived from "the specific company answers, weighted according to each question's significance in the company's market and prevailing best practices in that market." The results will be used to create summary assessments, identifying the level of concern across the four categories of corporate governance described above.
Governance Risk Indicators will be published on proxy research reports beginning in March, with CGQ to be retired at the end of June 2010.
