Marrone Bio Last Chance to Vote Marrone Bio Innovation’s AGM is tomorrow, October 29th at 9 AM Pacific. Unless you attend the meeting and vote quickly, today is your last chance. See my voting recommendations. I (James McRitchie) will present my proposal. It appears on the proxy as follows: #5 “To Consider a stockholder proposal […]
ESG Options in DC Plans? Morningstar can help you find them. President Trump’s Department of Labor aims to limit ESG investing in retirement plans, although even law firms recognize the need for ESG research. Fund flows and investor interest remained high according to Morningstar’s research, even amid the year’s earlier market downturn. Insights from Morningstar discuss how the Presidential […]
Marrone Bio Innovations 2020. October 29, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time. The Annual Meeting will be a virtual meeting of stockholders conducted online by live audio webcast. Attend the virtual meeting, vote your shares electronically and submit questions during the meeting by visiting www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/MBII2020, using your control number. To enhance long-term value: Withhold your […]
MBII Notice of Exempt Solicitation Marrone Bio Innovations Inc. (MBII) Shareholder Alert Voluntary submission by James McRitchie, 9295 Yorkship Ct., Elk Grove, CA 95758 Shareholder since 2016 Please vote for Proposal No. 5 before October 28th Stockholder Proposal: Phase in Simple Majority Vote The proposal’s description in the Proxy Voting Instructions Form (VIF) violates SEC Rule 14a-4(a)(3) Rule […]
Conservative TV and Corporate Social Responsibility. Again, public opinion is the driver. A 2017 Pew Research Center study found that 37% of Americans get their news from local television news. Only 28% get their news from cable TV, while 26% tune into network news. Sinclair Broadcasting expands by acquiring those trusted local TV stations and […]
Political disclosure up at large publicly held U.S. companies. That’s the conclusion of The Center for Political Accountability (CPA) and The Wharton School’s Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. Adoption of sound transparency and oversight practices for their political spending is part of an accelerating trend, according to a new scorecard. Investors want to hold […]
Climate Risk Hypocrites exposed by Morningstar’s Jackie Cook and Tom Lauricella. The authors found support for climate-related proposals rose at Fidelity, State Street Global Advisors, and Vanguard. Support fell at American Funds and BlackRock. (Top Fund Companies’ Climate Change Votes: A Very Mixed Picture) (more…)
BlackRock 8-K of October 6th contains good news for shareholders. I frequently complain about BlackRock because their actions, especially proxy voting, are out of sync with their positive ESG statements. (see BlackRock Action Update) However, it is also appropriate to give their board credit for proposing important corporate governance reforms to be voted at the […]
Illegal Marrone Bio proxy threatens not only their own shareholders but those of all companies. If Marrone Bio gets away with it, so can others. What can we do when a company violates the law and the SEC fails to act? We could go to court but that’s expensive. Instead, let’s mobilize. If enough cry foul, […]
Faking It. Remember those allegedly fake letters from retail investors supporting the US SEC’s controversial proxy advisor rule? [And the rules to “modernize” shareholder proposals, SEC Trampled Shareholder Rights.] Global Proxy Watch [GPW] remembers. They published the following yesterday [reproduced below with a little reformatting and my two cents in brackets]: (more…)