Matrix Group is the successor business to GPSC Group / Global Proxy Services Corporation, a distinguished name in international corporate governance and bank consulting and a trusted outsourcee for critical bank transaction processing. Matrix builds and expands upon this solid base to meet the needs of today's financial and development institutions.

The 1980s

From the late 1980s until its acquisition by ADP in 1997, GPSC was the leading independent international governance advisor and proxy, managing more than $200 billion in voting rights for 1,200+ public and corporate pension funds, asset managers, mutual funds, unit trusts, global custodian banks, trust companies, university endowments, church & religious funds, insurers, trade unions, foundations and others institutions and fiduciaries.

Over the 15 years since GPSC was founded, established institutions have matured, new ones have emerged, and the fiduciary needs of all have become more complex as their activities become ever more global, and their approach to investment and business becomes ever more sophisticated. Today's fiduciaries must continually assess investment risks and opportunities across a broad range of business and social dimensions from environment to governance, from labour conditions to productivity and management systems.

Under the direction of GPSC founder Joseph Lufkin, Matrix Group builds and expands on GPSC’s proven business model to meet the more sophisticated needs of today’s institutions. Matrix goes above & beyond the “investor - asset manager – custodian - issuer” axis, with a suite of services designed for a much broader client base, including national & multilateral development banks, funds, foundations, public and private corporations, aid agencies, and all others with similar interests in assessing, monitoring, remediating and enhancing enterprises, development projects, suppliers, contractors, joint venture partners, etc...

Our Corporate Lineage:

Matrix’s predecessor, GPSC, was founded by Joseph Lufkin in Boston, USA in 1989 as the Global Proxy Services Corporation, at a time when most institutional investors had only just begun to invest internationally, and then only in stocks of large-cap listed corporations in Western Europe and Japan.

At that time, despite their best intentions, these institutions had no way to gather information about their investees’ governance structures or even dates and agendas of shareholders’ meetings, no way to exercise their voting rights as mandated by regulators and best practice, and no way to apply globally the engagement policies which they had developed.

GPSC anticipated and met these needs by:

	Building an unrivalled correspondent network of 350+ banks in 54 countries, enabling universal and consistent exercise of voting rights (including delivering of policy statements at shareholders meetings) across even indexed emerging markets and global small-cap portfolios, empowering clients to act globally
	Developing a sophisticated global proxy processing system linking GPSC to all the above correspondents, with a simple and flexible fiduciary reporting system
	Documenting, and introducing US and European investors to, different corporate governance regimes around the world
	Developing standardized systems to apply clients’ governance policies universally, based upon a proprietary classification method which enabled straight-through processing of voting instructions
	Compiling a governance database on more than 5,000 corporations worldwide; and
	Initiating a creative program of high-level “Governance Diplomacy” and “Investee Relations”
	Arranging and conducting the first board-level meetings between US pension fund representatives and investee companies in England, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Thailand and other countries
	Sponsoring and participating in custody & governance symposia, conferences and hearings in London, Frankfurt, New York, Palm Beach, Tokyo, Milan & Paris
	Assisting governmental entities (e.g. the US Department of the Treasury) to formulate progressive policies towards corporate governance
	Producing the first and second editions of the leading book on comparative international corporate governance (International Corporate Governance, Euromoney Books, London, 1991 and 2004)

By doing so, GPSC opened many formerly closed or difficult national governance systems to outside investor participation: from major markets such as Japan, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands to emerging markets such as Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea.

Before GPSC entered the market, institutions had no way to vote through their custodians even in England or Germany. After five years, they were doing so through GPSC in more than 50 countries.

Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of capital was thus enfranchised and could find its voice: a voice which has shaped the development of governance systems – and of individual investee corporations – around the world for more than a decade.

In the process, GPSC built the experience base which allowed it to become the leading international corporate governance firm, advising and acting for top institutions in all major capital markets (a listing of major GPSC clients appears below).

After a decade of continuous growth, GPSC was so well-regarded that its proxy processing business was purchased from its founder by Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a US Fortune 100 company and leading provider of processing services to the financial community in the US, for integration into their domestic bank and brokerage services business.

Matrix Group - New Solutions:

During a contractual non-compete period following the sale of GPSC to ADP, we continued to serve clients including ADP itself, the Asian Development Bank, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo, the San Miguel Corporation in Manila, Georgeson & Co. (later Georgeson Shareholder Communications) in New York and London, Sun Life Financial of Canada, and developing countries including the governments of the Solomon Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Assignments included financial and non-financial assessment and enhancement of operating businesses, state-owned enterprises and SMEs, design of financing and investment vehicles, and advising on financial and corporate governance. All of this experience contributed to the formation of Matrix Group in 2001.

Matrix and it's range of services was developed in consultation with experienced international private equity managers and investment advisers, lead investors in major international funds, multilateral financial institutions, specialists in public company shareholder communications and due diligence, SRI-related organizations, NGOs, experts on local business conditions and practices in many countries, and experienced Asian executives.

This development process looked at all aspects of international investment, including equity and debt financing of public and private enterprises, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and other types of transactions. Lessons learned through private equity investing, and through consulting to the region’s premier financial institutions and corporations, were also integrated into the process.