FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 27, 2010
CONTACT: Julie Goodridge

NorthStar Asset Management, Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts
617-522-2635
jgoodridge@northstarasset.com

After seven months of dialogue with FedEx Corporation, NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. is pleased to report that FedEx has committed to extending health benefits to domestic partners of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees in every state. Prompted by a discrepancy between FedEx’s comprehensive non-discrimination policy and the Company’s benefits packages, NorthStar filed a shareholder resolution with FedEx in April of this year asking that equal benefits be extended to partners and families of LGBT senior executives.

Julie Goodridge, CEO of NorthStar stated, “Our hope was that by illuminating a conflict between the FedEx’s compensation for LGBT senior executives who lacked health, family leave and other benefits and its EEO policy, which claims to treat these employees equally, we would demonstrate troubling inconsistencies.”

Prior to the filing of the NorthStar resolution, FedEx offered domestic partner benefits only in California, where they are required by state law to do so. Married employees in other states where equal marriage laws are in effect were excluded from equal treatment in their compensation packages. FedEx’s major competitor, UPS, has provided equal benefits to all employees in all 50 states since 2004.
Through a multi-pronged approach, ongoing efforts by the corporation’s LGBT affinity group combined with NorthStar’s shareholder resolution filed on behalf of its clients led FedEx to grant equal health benefits to all employees.

Citing the economic downturn, FedEx will not extend benefits until January 1, 2012. “While the Company went above and beyond what our shareholder resolution requested,” Goodridge stated, “we are still concerned that shareholder value may be negatively affected if LGBT employees need to wait until 2012 to be treated equally, especially when the cost of providing these basic benefits is minimal.”
In the past week Senator Joseph Lieberman, commenting on the additional costs to adding LGBT employees to benefits for federal employees, said, “This legislation would cost about two-hundredths of a percent of the federal government’s overall costs for the civilian workforce. That is a very small price to pay for the improvements we would see in recruitment, retention, and morale.”

“The reality is that this will have little cost to the Company and an enormous benefit for LGBT employees. We are continuing our conversations with FedEx in hopes that the benefits will be implemented sooner than 2012,” Goodridge said.

NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. is a wealth management firm based in Boston, specializing in socially responsible investing.