How should directors prepare for shareholder activism? That was the underlying question addressed by last week’s SVDX / Rock Center for Corporate Governance joint event – Shareholder Activism: The Good, the Bad or Just Ugly. Shareholder activism is in the news almost every day. How does it play out in Silicon Valley? Is activism beneficial to (some) shareholders in the […]
Let’s change Vanguard’s political disclosure vote. Our nation’s largest mutual fund voted against all resolutions submitted by shareholders asking for companies to disclose their political spending. Shouldn’t we have the right to know what candidates our investments are supporting? Vanguard’s Political Disclosure Vote Needs Changed Join more than 59,000 American’s who have already petitioned Vanguard to […]
Visa Inc (V), a payments technology company, operates an open-loop payments network worldwide. The company facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. Visa is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is on February 3, 2016. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected no votes when I checked. I voted […]
Employee Participation and Ownership: Award Program The Foundation for Enterprise Development announced their annual award program for promising research by emerging scholars in the domain of broad-based employee participation and ownership. The purpose of the award program is to identify innovative research in management or management-related disciplines that considers high-impact ideas in the context of business and […]
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST), together with its subsidiaries, operates great membership warehouses. Costco Wholesale is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is on January 29, 2016. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked. I voted against two directors and for proxy access, therefore with the Board’s recommendations 57% of the time. View Proxy Statement. (more…)
Who Withdraws Shareholder Proposals and Does It Matter? An Analysis of Sponsor Identity and Pay Practices is the title of an import study in the November 2015 issue of Corporate Governance: An International Review. Examination of this topic is long overdue. Companies constantly take full credit for corporate governance reforms, such as the addition of proxy […]
Sonoco Products ($SON) recently sought no-action relief from the SEC to omit a proxy access shareholder proposal by William Steiner. The Division of Corporation Finance denied their request. The 1% now owns as much worldwide as the 99%, so why should Sonoco limit shareholder proposals and presenters to the 2%? I was happy to play […]
Research proposals on the Financial Economics of Climate Change are being sought by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund (Norges Bank). Proposals are due March 13, 2016. Norges recently awarded two research grants, one for a project on portfolio choice for long-term investors and another for an investigation of the effectiveness of engaged ownership. The objective of the […]
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) operates as a pharmacy-led health and wellbeing company. The company operates through three segments: Retail Pharmacy USA, Retail Pharmacy International, and Pharmaceutical Wholesale. Walgreens Boots Alliance is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is on January 27, 2016. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked. I voted with […]
A North American board governance guru, Dr. Richard LeBlanc is put on the hot seat to discuss key steps to creating a great board—and how investors can know how effective their board really is. LeBlanc and host TK Kerstetter talk about board leadership, board assessments, board recruitment and composition. Kerstetter also quizzes LeBlanc about his […]
Norway’s Resource Extraction The Government Pension Fund Global (Norges, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund), is one of the world’s largest funds initially funded by resource extraction. Learn about its history, objective and management in the video clip below. The fund is saving for the future generations in Norway; where is the American equivalent? To achieve broad […]
Directors Forum 2016 is a ‘must’ in an increasingly complex and volatile environment with expanding investor and stakeholder activism, geo-political unrest and 24/7 political campaigning, boards and management facing unprecedented demands. “Directors Forum 2016: Directors, Management & Shareholders in Dialogue,” hosted by Corporate Directors Forum on January 24-26, 2016, provides a forum for three constituencies […]
Analogic Corporation ($ALOG), a technology company, designs, manufactures, and sells medical imaging, ultrasound, and security systems and subsystems to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end users in the healthcare and airport security markets worldwide. Analogic is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on January 21, 2016. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of […]
Disclose Climate Lobbying: Resolutions Filed at Oil and Gas Companies Encouraged by the forward‐looking actions addressing climate change at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in December, investors have filed shareholder resolutions at 11 oil and gas companies asking them to disclose climate lobbying activities. The resolutions urge the companies to fully disclose their lobbying activities and […]
In the wake of a New York Times story by Mark Oppenheimer about Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey’s relationship with former rabbi and alleged sex offender Marc Gafni, the company has come under scrutiny. (A Spiritual Leader Gains Stature, Trailed by a Troubled Past) On December 25th, The Times story reported Gafni saying of one […]
Once again, Reed’s (REED) zombie director Daniel S.J, Muffoetto was voted off the board by shareholders at the annual meeting. This time, it has impact. The board, or at least the controlling founder Christopher Reed, got the message. As I have noted previously, neither Mr. Muffoetto nor Michael Fischman (who was reelected) report owning any stock in Reed’s. […]
It’s been two months since the SRI Conference in Colorado Springs but I’m still digesting content, like the potential of Folio Investing, and following up with other attendees. #AllinForImpact continues in San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, New York City, Boston and then Denver. Get to at least one of these conferences this year so you too can get inspired. The people and idea are […]