According to a study recently conducted by The Wall Street Transcript group, close to half of all asset managers they spoke with still conduct their regular broker voting process using spreadsheets, despite the development of more sophisticated broker voting systems over the past decade.
Broker Vote Survey Results
A white paper, recently published by The Wall Street Transcript’s EasyBrokerVote group reviews a survey conducted last year of asset managers on the current state of the broker voting process. The survey suggested that spreadsheets are widely used by asset managers to complete a vote. Some key findings from the survey include:
- 48% of respondents use spreadsheets to conduct a broker vote
- One quarter of firms have a system to track corporate access and research provided
- 40% of respondents provide feedback to the sell side on request with 15% providing no feedback
EasyBrokerVote
Last year The Wall Street Transcript group launched a low priced web-based application to help asset managers conduct a broker vote called EasyBrokerVote. The Wall Street Transcript’s MeetMax software division has been providing corporate access and sell-side event registration, scheduling and reporting software since 2003.
The installed base of broker vote applications among asset managers is still relatively limited despite the fact that at least two products have been available for some time (Cogent and Markit WSOD).
The EasyBrokerVote product is targeted at asset managers who require an application to enable a broker vote process to be completed quickly but require greater functionality that spreadsheets. Specifically asset managers who want to vote easily beyond the firm level to capture different services such as corporate access and research.
For more details on the survey and the product offering please contact easybrokervote@twst.com.