GMI Analyst Fact Sheet

© 2012 GMI Ratings1 +1 877-479-7500 info@gmiratings.comwww.gmiratings.comGMI Analyst Fact SheetOctober 2012 OverviewGMI Analyst is our web-based platform delivering comprehensive environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) and accounting and governance risk (AGR®) research and ratings. GMI Analyst is updated daily and includes 5,500 companies with ESG research and ratings, and 18,000 companies with AGR research and ratings. Launched in 2012, GMI Analyst is an industry-leading platform used for integrating ESG into investment analysis, compliance, and risk management, and designed to inform decisions and identify critical areas of risk.Objective Research Focused on the Most Material Risk FactorsESG AGROur Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings help investors assess the sustainable investment value of public companies. • Our ESG ratings reflect actual behaviors rather than corporate policies or affirmations of intent to adhere to best ESG practices.• Unlike models with evenly weighted metrics, we assign context-sensitive relative weightings to our key metrics, based on market, regional, ownership or sector differences. This sensitivity to regional and sector-dependent variations sharply differentiates GMI Ratings from exclusionary screening methodologies associated with more traditional Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) research. • Our integrated research platform – GMI Analyst – provides access to Trucost environmental performance data. Trucost provides the world’s most comprehensive data on corporate environmental impacts, including Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), water, waste, pollutants and natural resource dependency. Our Accounting and Governance Risk (AGR®) ratings assess the accuracy and reliability of a company’s financial reporting and quality of governance.• AGR ratings reflect accounting and governance practices statistically associated with an elevated risk of securities class-action litigation, financial restatements, SEC enforcement actions, bankruptcies and other events likely to cause precipitous contractions of equity value.• Our internal research has consistently confirmed that companies with the lowest AGR scores underperform broad market indices and exhibit higher volatility. On the other hand, companies with the highest AGR scores outperform the market with lower return volatility.• In a recent independent academic study (Detecting and Predicting Accounting Irregularities: A Comparison of Commercial and Academic Risk Measures), authors Price, Sharp and Wood found that AGR outperformed six academic risk metrics in detecting accounting irregularities.GMI Analyst Ratings and ResearchGMI Ratings maintains broad coverage of the environmental, social, governance (ESG) and accounting risks affecting the performance of public companies. The firm publishes two proprietary ratings of public companies: ESG and Accounting and Governance Risk (AGR) rating. These ratings complement traditional security analysis and financial risk modeling. The ESG and AGR ratings help GMI clients identify and quantify extra-financial risks stemming from variables not yet incorporated into dominant valuation methodologies and approaches to capital allocation.Coverage of Companies (As of 4/12)5,492 companies in 48 countries• 590 in Emerging Markets• 3,103 in North America• 997 in Industrialized Europe• 802 in Industrialized Asia Pacific18,423 companies in 27 countries• 7,473 in North America, including 472 private companies with public debt• 6,627 in Asia Pacific• 4,323 in Western EuropeCoverage of Risk FactorsESG AGR120 ESG KeyMetrics™• Corporate events• Governance/BOD• Governance/Pay• Governance/Ownership & Control• Environmental performance• Social ImpactAccounting and governance risks• Revenue recognition practices• Expense recognition practices• High-risk events • Governance practices• Asset-liability valuationESG AGRThese rankings are intended to provide investors with an effective summaryof environmental, social and corporate governance factors that can and do impact investment value. They are not, however, intended for stand-alone use and should not be considered as simple Buy, Sell or Hold recommendations. Most investment professionals regard these ratings as a specialized, proprietary input to be used for ESG benchmarking in combination with existing fundamental analysis or other approaches and to help ensure compliance with the UN-PRI (United Nations Principles of Responsible Investing) and other similar standards.About GMI RatingsGMI Ratings is an independent provider of research and ratings on environmental, social, governance and accounting-related risks affecting the performance of public companies. The firm’s ESG ratings for nearly 5,500 companies worldwide incorporate 120 ESG KeyMetrics™ to help investors assess the sustainable investment value of corporations. The firm also provides Accounting and Governance Ratings (AGR®) for approximately 18,000 public companies worldwide. AGR metrics reflect the accuracy and reliability of a company’s financial reporting. Clients of GMI Ratings include leading institutional investors, banks, insurers, auditors, regulators and corporations seeking to incorporate accounting and ESG factors into risk assessment and decision-making. A signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), GMI Ratings was formed in 2010 through the merger of GovernanceMetrics International, The Corporate Library and Audit Integrity. In the 2012 Independent Research in Responsible Investment (IRRI) Survey conducted by Thomson Reuters Extel and SRI-CONNECT.com, GMI Ratings was named “The Best Independent Corporate Governance Research Provider”. For more information please visit www.gmiratings.com.Analytical ToolsGMI Analyst provides real-time news and events, market data, regulatory disclosures, financial statements, litigation/regulatory actions, insider trading, and related party transactions. Our intuitive web-based platform enables an extensive set of added content, features and functionality designed to inform investment, proxy decisions and enable peer comparisons. These include:Portfolio Risk Assessment: Create weighted watch lists to monitor portfolios for deteriorating positionsDetailed Data Comparison: Drill down to understand the underlying causes of potential problemsDirector Networks: View executive relationship networks and individual profilesAlerts: Ratings changes, news and up-dates are emailed to your inbox provide an early warning of potential risks and deteriorating positionsPDF Reports: Download full reports of company ESG and AGR research and ratingsCorporate Information: Comprehensive corporate, financial and sustainability dataAdvanced Search and Screening Tools: Easily filter our deep datasets for actionable informationData Download: Down-load full data sets for analysis in Excel