As Manifest continues its increase in global coverage, we are delighted to announce that from October 2011, Manifest has a branch office operating in Melbourne, Australia. We are delighted to be working with Mark Bytheway and the team at the Sustainable Research Institute, SIRIS, to offer Asian investors an Asia-Pacific focussed governance support service.

The partnership with SIRIS brings a combination of independent, objective and conflict-free research together with our award winning vote agency platform to offer the Australian investors a real alternative which puts the asset owners at the heart of the process.

The venture brings together SIRIS’ Asian regional research capability with Manifest’s global service offer. SIRIS’ team in Melbourne will support the process with research, analysis, company dialogue and engagement and client support.

Together, the two groups have been undertaking governance research and voting recommendations for a combined 24 years Commenting on the new partnership, Manifest CEO Sarah Wilson said: “We are delighted to be working with the SIRIS team in the Asia-Pac region. Corporate governance issues are climbing up the agenda for investors in an unprecedented way and the regulatory scrutiny puts pressure on asset owners to do the best job they can. Manifest brings a suite of trustworthy products to support investors and to enable their voice to be heard. Critically, our offering is backed by a stable management team with an uninterrupted 16 year track record of commitment to the proxy space”.

SIRIS CEO Mark Bytheway added: “SIRIS is delighted to be able to offer clients a suite of governance services, which reflect a local perspective, including standards, but enables benchmarking regional companies against global peers. We are also excited that, through this venture, we will be able to include ESG analysis into the governance research and voting recommendation process.”

For further information contact:

Sarah Wilson, CEO, Manifest +44 1376 504503 (office) | +44 7770 688869 (mobile)

Email: sarah.wilson@manifest.co.uk

Mark Bytheway, CEO, SIRIS +61 3 8621 2000 (office) | +61 438 630 400 (mobile)

Email: mark.bytheway@siris.com.au