Meritas Funds to publish voting results on-line

In a move to increase transparency to their investors, Meritas Mutual Funds has announced it will be publishing the results of its shareholder votes on its web site.

Meritas announced that it has paired with Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a leading shareholder resolution research and voting firm, to provide proxy voting results online at Meritas' recently expanded.

 "This is Meritas' first proxy voting season and, in line with our intention to be as transparent as possible, we wanted to show our investors how we intend to vote the shares that we hold on their behalf," said Gary Hawton, Chief Executive Officer of Meritas Mutual Funds.  "We are among the pioneers in this regard in Canada and around the world and we feel that there is a growing need for mutual fund companies to be accountable to their unitholders with respect to their proxy voting intentions."

Meritas' social and environmental standards encompass a comprehensive set of screens. ISS will assist Meritas by providing recommendations based on Meritas' set of standards.

"I think that the public's view of SRI is still one that sees it as punishing bad companies. While we employ an avoidance screening aspect (avoiding tobacco, alcohol or military involvement, etc), we believe that true commitment to SRI goes beyond this and engages companies in dialogue on a variety of issues which may have a direct social or environmental impact and ultimately a financial impact as well," said Hawton. "It is the right and responsibility of a mutual fund to be actively involved in the management of the companies that it owns. One of the steps and key responsibilities in this process for SRI mutual funds is the voting of shareholder proxies in line with their social and environmental standards and not just always in favour of management's recommendations.

"We're very excited to be working with Meritas Mutual Funds," adds Joe Henzlik, Manager of the Social Investment Research Services division of ISS.  "Shareholder activism is one of the key pillars of socially responsible investing and to see Meritas take an active role in their first proxy voting season speaks volumes for their commitment to the issues that concern socially responsible investors."

For more information, visit Meritas Mutual Funds  - www.meritas.ca

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