Goldman Sachs urged to separate CEO and chair roles by proxy advisers

UNITED STATES: Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab should separate the CEO and chairman roles currently held by David Solomon, proxy adviser Glass Lewis wrote in a report on Thursday.

The recommendation to shareholders followed a similar suggestion from Institutional Shareholder Services on Wednesday.

Glass Lewis said having an independent chair "is nearly always preferable to having a single individual lead both the board and the executive team."

In addition, it recommended investors cast advisory votes against compensation at the Wall Street bank.

Goldman shareholders "should be wary of the continued disconnect between pay and performance," Glass Lewis wrote in its report, saying the pay for Solomon and other top executives together was above the median of peers used its model.

ISS' comments on Solomon's leadership on Wednesday made specific mention of the bank's strategy.

"Solomon's foray into the consumer realm has been met with missteps and steep losses, which seem to have trickled into further human capital issues," it wrote in the report on Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs did not immediately provide a comment. On Wednesday, a company spokesperson cited the bank's recommendation to vote against the independent chair proposal as laid out in its proxy statement.

The resolution to split Goldman's chairman and CEO titles was filed by the National Legal and Policy Center. A similar measure it filed last year won just 16% support.

Last year, Glass Lewis had also recommended investors vote for the separation of the chairman and CEO roles as a matter of good corporate governance. Meanwhile, ISS had recommended against the measure, saying at the time there were "no significant concerns regarding the company's governance practices."

Goldman's annual meeting is slated for April 24. Like ISS, Glass Lewis recommended votes approving all the bank's director nominees, including Solomon.

The bank appointed David Viniar, who served as its finance chief from 1999 to 2013, as its next independent lead director. He will succeed Adebayo Ogunlesi, who will step down at the annual meeting.