What follows are quick takes, with many incomplete sentences, from the recent Directors Forum 2019 held in San Diego. These are highlights from the notes of one participant, from my perspective as a shareholder advocate. If you attended, I am sure you have different takeaways. Please share them as comments. Like all Directors Forums, this one […]
Retail shareowners own about 1/3 of shares traded in the United States but vote only about 1/3 of the shares we own. Moreover, when we do vote, we frequently do so by blindly or unknowingly voting with management. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I explored five internet platforms that were designed […]
In part 2 of a post on facilitating votes and activism by retail shareowners I continue to speculate on what could be done to improve the situation by recalling some of the better features of major efforts to date and possible improvements that would help conscientious shareowners. As Mark Latham reminded me after yesterday’s part 1, […]
Retail shareowners own about 1/3 of shares traded in the United States but vote only about 1/3 of the shares we own. As Nell Minow once quipped, “you can lead a shareholder to a lot of dense material, but you can’t make them read it.” (Video Friday: SEC Proxy Voting Roundtable) Our voting influence is much smaller […]
Now that proxy season is finally winding down, I had a few minutes to take a quick glance at recent research reported on SSRN. Below I am simply including a few citations and abstracts of studies I might find useful in my own activities as a shareholder advocate in the US. I’m sure I included some […]
Now that proxy season is finally winding down, I had a few minutes to take a quick glance at recent research reported on SSRN. Below I am simply including a few citations and abstracts of studies that might be useful for shareholder advocates in the U.S. I’m sure I included some that are strictly academic […]
The ICGN Annual Conference, hosted by the City of London, is now only a few weeks away. The organization will welcome over 600 delegates to and celebrate its 20 year anniversary. Places for the conference are limited, so register now to avoid any disappointment. A new session has been added to the agenda this week: ‘Creating long-term, […]
There are good neighbors. Then there is Nabors Industries, Inc. Those were the opening sentences of another excellent editorial at Pensions & Investments (Test of Governance Wills, June 30). See their cartoon at right, which is very close to portraying the truth about Nabors. (P&I’s other outstanding recent editorial was Winning over proxy voters, May 12.) […]
Lecture given by Chad L. Norton, Vice President, Fund Business Management Group of Capital Research and Management Company at Banta Center for Business, Ethics and Society, University of Redlands. Mr. Norton previously served as corporate secretary of The New Economy Fund and SMALLCAP World Fund, Inc., two of Capital’s retail mutual funds, as well as American Funds Insurance Series, […]
Rose, Paul and Sharfman, Bernard S., Shareholder Activism as a Corrective Mechanism in Corporate Governance (September 11, 2013). Ohio State Public Law Working Paper No. 225. Available at SSRN. Type: Theoretical Research Issue: How can activism be utilized to allow corporate decision making to be executed in the most efficient manner? (more…)
Shareholders are demanding more from managements and boards – not just as overseers, but in an effort to increase the value of the enterprise. Amid the backdrop of record-low interest rates, pent-up M&A demand and stacks of cash on corporate balance sheets, these activists are being backed by new capital. In addition, more companies are […]
New investment advisory firm, Sustainvest Asset Management LLC focused on sustainable and responsible investing (SRI), has started operations. The firm focuses on investment management for individuals, foundations and non-profit organizations who are searching for an investment advisor who uses the 3 pillars of SRI: (more…)
Abstracts from a few papers posted this month to the Social Science Research Newtork. Hall, Thomas W. and Jörgensen, Fredrik A., Ownership and Performance in Europe (2012). Forthcoming, Review of Business. The authors consider the relationship between performance and ownership concentration in a large number of publicly traded and privately held companies located in smaller […]
Sep 19 2012 Bob Monks, founder of GMI, thinks far too few owners participated in the shareholder spring. To promote activism, fiduciaries should be paid but should also be held to account. We should be unequivocal and make clear that society requires effective ownership, he says. (4m 29sec) (more…)
Shareholder Spring Power of the Proxy. CNBC interview with Michael Garland, NYC Comptroller’s director of corporate governance and Lisa Lindsley, of AFSCME. (more…)
Investing in Japan by Steven Towns carries the subtitle, “There is no stock market as undervalued and as misunderstood as Japan.” Towns might be right. He guides the reader to plenty of undervalued companies but (more…)
“Offensive shareholder activism” involves buying up sizeable stakes in underperforming companies and agitating for changes predicted to increase shareholder returns. Though hedge funds are currently highly publicized practitioners of this corporate governance tactic, there has been no analysis of the extent to which managers of U.S. public companies were faced with challenges of this nature […]
Shareholders – mainly large institutions running pension funds – are supposed to invest for the long-term on behalf of their ultimate owners: you and me. They are also charged with channelling funds into businesses that will grow, boost the UK economy and so generate a decent retirement income for tomorrow’s pensioners. The reality is they […]
Ferri, Fabrizio, ‘Low Cost’ Shareholder Activism: A Review of the Evidence (December 1, 2010). Research Handbook on the Economics of Corporate Law, Claire Hill & Brett McDonnell, eds., Elgar Publishers, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN. Ferria looks at studies of shareholder proposals filed under Rule 14a-8 and shareholder votes on uncontested director elections. He finds that “collectively, these studies suggest that low-cost activism has […]
Corporate Governance: An International Review has been one of our “stakeholders” from the beginning. The July issue, which I just got around to reading, provides excellent articles around the general theme of research on shareholder action. Antecedents of Shareholder Activism in Target Firms: Evidence from a Multi-Country Study, by William Q. Judge, Ajai Gaur, and […]
Bill Baue and Marcy Murninghan have authored a recent working paper that deserves wide circulation and thoughtful consideration. The Accountability Web: Weaving Corporate Accountability and Interactive Technology can be downloaded from the website of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Since I’m trying to get you to read the […]