Activist Investing: Background, Impact and the Players These videos are dated but still timely. On April 16th, 2012 Stanford’s Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance kicked off their Shareholder Activism Series with a discussion titled “Activist Investing: Background, Impact and the Players.” (more…)
A recent paper [Miriam Schwartz-Ziv and Russ Wermers, Do Small and Large Shareholders Have a Say-on-Pay? (October 15, 2014) available at SSRN] investigates the voting patterns of shareholders on Say-On-Pay and finds that ‘small’ shareholders are more likely than large shareholders to use the non-binding Say-On-Pay vote to govern their companies, are more likely to vote for an annual […]
Carl Gershenson – “Protecting Markets from Society: Non-Pecuniary Claims in American Corporate Democracy” forthcoming in Politics & Society looks at the role of the state as ‘market protector.’ Protecting us from inside trading, pump and dump schemes, policing market players? Yes, that may be the primary duty of agencies such as the SEC. However, Gershenson turns our attention to […]
Corporate Governance Publisher’s Note: Yes, you’ll find many broken links in the material referenced below. After 5, 10 and 15 years, the internet moves on. Many of the organization’s linked have since gone under. We’re just glad to still be here, offering our readers a sense of the history we have shared. More about the WABAC machine. […]
The Manhattan Institute‘s Proxy Monitor Project would call it another failure by gadfly shareholders, since Visa Inc. (V) filed a no-action request with the SEC and is very likely to receive the go-ahead to exclude our Simple Majority proposal from their proxy. If that happens, there is no way it will receive a majority vote […]
Leaders from Osler and the Institute of Corporate Directors discuss the evolution of corporate governance and the release of Directors Responsibilities in Canada – a guide to understanding and fulfilling director responsibilities. Although written for Canada, it has general applicability worldwide. After the video, I suggest a couple of additional books. (more…)
Symantec Corporation (NASD:SYMC), which provides security, backup, and availability solutions worldwide, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 10/28/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 10/22/2014. I voted with management 55% of the time and assigned them a proxy score of 55. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. […]
Entrenched corporate elites may need to up their public opinion game. Robert Monks and Nell Minow are near the top of their attack list. (Shareholder crusaders Monks and Minow speak out) Having been sued several times for having the audacity to make recommendations to boards via shareowner proposals, I’m on there too. (see EMC v. […]
How will 2025 be different from today? What should you innovate, invent, create or build? What steps should you take today to position yourself and your company to flourish in tomorrow’s world? Those were some of the questions that were asked and at least somewhat answered on Tursday, October 16, 2014, as the Silicon Valley […]
The Rise and Fall of Homo Economicus: The Myth of the Rational Human and the Chaotic Reality by Yannis Papadogiannis deserves wide circulation for documenting the failed state of economics as science. Humans are a far cry from the rational creatures mainstream economics assumes. Economics as a science will never be as mathematically precise as Newtonian […]
For his last show, five-year host, TK Kerstetter, reminisces with Scott Cutler about the key moments of the show and introduces the new hosts who will carry the torch forward. Kerstetter had a great run with lots of interviews with interesting people in corporate governance. Now, apparently, he looks forward to going back to being […]
The Manhattan Institute‘s Proxy Monitor Project would call it another failure by a gadfly shareholder, since the Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN) filed for and obtained no-action relief with the SEC, allowing it to leave my proposal for a Majority Vote standard in uncontested elections off their proxy. There is no way it can now receive a majority vote from shareowners. […]
On May 8, 2014, the Delaware Supreme Court issued an opinion in ATP Tour, Inc. v. Deutscher Tennis Bund (German Tennis Federation), No. 534, 2013 (Del. May 8, 2014), holding that fee-shifting provisions in a Delaware non-stock corporation’s bylaws are not per se invalid. (more…)
This is first time I’ve attended a Council of Institutional Investors (CII) semi-annual conference. My report from first day events can be found at CII Fall 2014 Conference: Part 1. See also, Part 2 and Part 3. There are no fact checkers or even grammar editors here at corpgov.net, so read with that warning. I’ll try to […]
This is first time I’ve attended a Council of Institutional Investors (CII) semi-annual conference. Already posted are CII Fall 2014 Conference: Part 1 and CII Fall 2014 Conference: Part 2. In part 3 a panel of experts discusses several legal developments during 2014 and Tim Koller, with McKinsey, discusses how to create growth for the long-term. Warning: I’m not an […]
Activism is on the rise. When and how can activist shareholders in the boardroom be a force for positive change? Directors need to be prepared. Janet Clark, Darren Novak, Brian L. Shorr, and Andrew Shapiro discuss the issues around strategy and corporate governance at an NACD board leadership conference. (more…)
This is first time I’ve attended a Council of Institutional Investors (CII) semi-annual conference. My report from first day events can be found at CII Fall 2014 Conference: Part 1. Okay, I’m getting more cryptic in my second day of notes. Sorry, I’m not willing to take the time to clean them up. Watch out for possible […]
This is the first time I’ve attended a Council of Institutional Investors (CII) semi-annual conference. As at most conferences, the biggest draw is the ability to network, making new contacts and refreshing old ones. I was delighted to reconnect with Meredith Miller, chief corporate governance officer, UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust. I hadn’t seen Meredith since we were […]
The Manhattan Institute‘s Proxy Monitor Project would call it another failure by gadfly shareholders, since United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) filed and was granted a no-action request by the SEC to exclude our proposal to allow shareowners with 15% of the outstanding UNFI shares to call a special meeting. Since the proposal cannot receive a majority vote from shareowners, the […]
Procter & Gamble Company (PG), which manufactures and sells branded consumer packaged goods, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 10/14/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 9/20/2014. I voted with management 44% of the time and assigned them a proxy score of 44. View Proxy […]
The Coca-Cola Company recently announced it would change its equity compensation plan, bowing to pressure from Wintergreen Advisers and other investors who saw the plan as harmful to Coca-Cola shareholders. With its announcement, Coca-Cola finally conceded that the equity compensation plan it put to a vote of shareholders in April was outrageously excessive and inconsistent […]
This recently released CII report highlights two suggested alternative approaches to company disclosure of the board evaluation process. The suggestions are based on CII’s informal survey of its members for “best-in-class” disclosure from 2013 and 2014 proxy statements. CII acknowledges that most companies have a board self-evaluation process and disclose that fact in their proxy statements, but indicates that investors […]
We last explored the topic of gender diversity on boards, in particular the underrepresentation of women on them, late in 2012, but much has happened globally on the subject since then. More companies have adopted regulation on the issue that range from “comply-or-explain” rules to quotas for the percentage of women on boards. A 2014 Grant Thornton […]