Citigroup has decided to spin off its electronic proxy voting platform Proximity to a consortium comprising major banking groups.
The platform has raised an investment of $20.5m from investors group which includes JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon, HSBC, State Street, and Deutsche Bank.
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Citigroup said that Proximity will now operate as an independent entity based in London.
The platform’s co-founders Dean Little and Jonathan Smalley have been named as CEO and COO, respectively.
Little said: “The establishment of this strong consortium is a vote of confidence in Proxymity’s future and overall vision and we look forward to growing the team and suite of products to deliver Proxymity to more institutions around the world.”
Proxymity directly connects and authenticates the issuer and investor and makes the voting process more efficient, accurate and transparent.
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By GlobalDataSupported by Computershare for registry services, the platform Proxymity uses a core algorithm to streamline the flow of information between intermediaries.
It eliminates intermediary cut-off dates to ensure that investors have optimum time to research the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and cast their votes while allowing issuers to receive votes in real time.
The newly raised funds will be used by the platform to scale the platform for delivery to a wider client base and gain foothold more markets.
However, EU markets will remain immediate focus of the platform ahead of the forthcoming SRDII implementation.
Developed in 2017, Proxymity has supported more than 3,000 shareholder meetings so far. The platform has been fully launched in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Australia. It is currently being tested in Spain.
