Monday, Hewitt Associates (HEW) said it has closed on a partial divestiture of its Executive Compensation Consulting business in North America. Under the agreement, a select number of Hewitt principals and consultants will be leaving Hewitt to form Meridian Compensation Partners LLC, which will operate as an independent executive compensation consulting firm. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Hewitt said it will continue to serve board clients that are comfortable with the comprehensive controls already put in place to ensure the independence of its executive compensation advice or where fee disclosures are not a material issue. It will also focus on growing its robust executive compensation advisory business for management.
"The independence of executive compensation consultants who serve Compensation Committees has become a politically charged issue over the past few years. While Hewitt has established substantial safeguards to ensure that our consultants provide purely objective advice and counsel, the recent SEC fee disclosure rules and political environment are pressuring some clients to avoid the issue entirely by moving to completely independent advisors, said Russ Fradin, Hewitt's chairman and chief executive officer.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.