Why Hasn’t Schwab Acted on Shareholder Support to Declassify the Board? According to the Schwab 2025 opposition statement, James McRitchie’s shareholder proposal to declassify Schwab’s Board received majority support. In response, our Board introduced its own proposal — which also gained majority support but narrowly missed the company’s unusually high 80% supermajority threshold. And then… […]
Statement of Shareholder Rights Group and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility Regarding Corporate Governance and Annual General Meetings in 2025. (more…)
Broadridge No-Action Request Threatens Democracy Broadridge No-Action request threatens democracy, so it deserves a second post because of its critical importance. At an in-person meeting, everyone can easily see a show of hands when the moderator asks if anyone needs more time to vote. Not so at virtual shareholder meetings, which have quickly become the […]
Fund Votes 3/30/2022. Updated links to pre-disclosing funds like Norges and Trillium, which also include reasons for their proxy votes. NICE!
In-Person-Only AGM constitutes a reckless disregard of covid risk, notes shareholder advocate John Chevedden, regarding Dover Corporation‘s (DOV) decision. U.S. health experts are warning an emerging, highly contagious Covid omicron variant, called BA.2, could soon lead to another uptick in domestic coronavirus cases. Corporate governance continues to evolve. In a letter to the SEC, Mr. Chevedden […]
4 March 2022: Academic Definitions I added Bob Tricker’s new definition to a Library page on defining corporate governance. Corporate governance describes the way trust is shown, power exercised, and accountability achieved in corporate entities, for the benefit of their members, other stakeholders, and society. (Bob Tricker, The Future of Corporate Governance: A Personal Odyssey, 2022) […]
Pegasystems 2021 annual meeting is June 22, 7 AM Pacific Time. To attend, vote, and submit questions during the Annual Meeting visit here. To participate, you will need the 16-digit control number provided on your proxy card or voting instruction form. Of course, I recommend voting in advance. To enhance long-term value. Vote AGAINST Gyenes, […]
Proxy Season 2021 Investor Sentiment Study: Background Proxy Season 2021 Investor Sentiment Study finds the rise and influence of individual investors presents unique opportunities to engage new investors like never before. A new survey from Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR) highlights how new and younger retail investors are thinking about investing and this year’s proxy […]
Disney 2021 annual meeting is March 9, 10 AM Pacific Time. To attend, vote, and submit questions during the Annual Meeting, visit virtualshareholdermeeting.com/DIS2021 and enter your control number. I recommend voting in advance. To enhance long-term value. Vote AGAINST Iger, Barra, Lagomasio, Parker, the Auditor, and Pay. Vote FOR Lobbying Disclosure and Increase Diversity of Director […]
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 […]
Costco 2020 annual meeting is January 22nd. To enhance long-term value: Vote AGAINST Charles T. Munger, Auditor, and “True Diversity” Board Policy; FOR Director Removal Without Cause. Unfortunately, the meeting is virtual-only, instead of hybrid, so shareholders cannot meet each other, the directors or management. The board/management can also screen out any comments or criticisms. (more…)
MBII, Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc., was added to the Russell Microcap Index after the market closed on June 23, 2017. Hopefully, that will provide some needed stability to this volatile stock, so it is great news. However, corporate governance concerns remain. For example, when will our company hold the 2017 annual meeting? MBII Has Plenty of Positives […]
Virtual-Only Meetings are quickly being adopted by entrenched boards who fear both adverse publicity and any attempt by shareholders, especially retail shareholders, to hold them accountable. Broadridge Financial Solutions ($BR) has a direct financial incentive to push companies toward virtual-only meetings. Although many funds and organizations oppose such meetings, no one in the opposition has a […]
James McRitchie, the publisher of Corporate Governance and one of three retail shareowners accused in the New York Times of holding Corporate America ‘hostage,’ will be in Los Angeles September 29 through October 1 attending the Council of Institutional Investors Fall 2014 Conference. I am eager to meet with readers to discuss activist corporate governance […]
This is the first of a three part series. See also Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 2): Historical Background and Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 3): Take Action. A recent editorial in Pensions & Investments (P&I), Winning over proxy voters, essentially argues that pensions have a fiduciary duty to announce their proxy votes in advance of the […]
As reported by CSRwire, Under Fire from Critics, Chevron CEO Quietly Moves Annual Shareholder Meeting to Remote Town In Texas. We are still in the midst of our second Foxhole of the Year Award for the company that makes it the most difficult for shareowners turn up at their annual meeting. Last year’s winner was Peabody Energy for their choice of […]
Marriott International $MAR, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/9/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked and voted on 5/5/2014. I voted with management 60% of the time. View Proxy Statement. (more…)
Mike Tyrrell is Editor of SRI-Connect – an online research marketplace for professional institutional investors, analysts & companies interested in sustainable development. He is keen to open up the site to corporate governance analysts & corporate governance research. I’ve heard so many complaints over the years about the work overload that occurs in ‘voting season’ and […]
Guest Post: Miguel Carrasco – Managing Director and proxy solicitation consultant at Proxycensus Ltd specializing in issues relating to information transmittal, social media technology in IR and the technicalities of the cross border voting process. He is also a member of the ICGN, ECGI, CoF and the Investor Relations Society. (more…)
A recent report by InGovern Research Services analyzes patterns in the resolutions proposed by Indian listed companies in the just concluded 2013 proxy voting season. The data has been collated and analyzed from a coverage universe of 585 companies forming part of the S&P 500 and BSE 500 indices, which represent over 95% of the market […]
Thanks to Jackie Cook and CookESG Research, we have added the October annual shareowner meetings to our AGM Dates page. This is a slow month for AGMs.
Guest Post from Stephen Viederman, Fellow, Governance & Accountability Institute, reposted here with the permission of Viederman and Accountability-Central.com. James McRitchie, Publisher of Corporate Governance reformatted the original to bring the footnotes up, hide urls and generated those wonderful ads. The Spring madness of annual corporate meetings (referred to as AGMs) is upon us. (more…)
Note: Members Only – TheCorporateCounsel.net always produces top quality content but I thought the recent post Inside Track with Broc: Ginny Fogg on Shareholder Proposal Processes (2/8/13) was especially informative regarding how at least one company deals with shareowner proposals. As Broc Romanek points out, Fogg discusses: What is your shareholder proposal intake process (eg. who […]
Powered by Jackie Cook’s Fund Votes, a handy list of upcoming meetings. Research voting guidelines at FundVotes, how respected funds and advocates have voted at Proxy Democracy and MoxyVote. Vote proxies using Moxy Vote’s (more…)
Apple (AAPL) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on February 23, 2012 (Thursday). This is one meeting I’ll be attending in person, both to vote and to move my motion to provide shareowners with a “say on directors pay.” When I last looked, MoxyVote.com had recommendations from twelve […]
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), UK’s independent regulator “responsible for promoting high quality corporate governance and reporting to foster investment,” is also in charge of the Stewardship Code for institutional investors. The FRC, 230 pension schemes, fund managers and service-providers have signed up for the Stewardship Code, including “most of the major investors in UK equities.” According to […]
Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) held its annual meeting in front of a 2000-strong crowd in its hometown Seattle yesterday – and if you weren’t able to be there in person you could tune in to a video webcast and live tweeting session to stay in the loop. via Starbucks tweets annual meeting, holds results | IR […]
While many companies are using social media to push out investor relations information, global conferencing firm PGi (NYSE: PGI) is among a rare few that is also using social media in two-way conversations with investors. During the company’s recent Q4 earnings call, PGi Senior Vice President of Strategy & Communications Sean O’Brien, who was an […]
Mathew Rafat attended Intuit’s (INTU) annual shareowner meeting on January 19, 2011. He is the only shareowner I know of who regularly reports on what goes on at the annual meetings he attends. In this post he doesn’t discuss proxy issues or resolutions, so I presume there was nothing of note. Still, if you’re a […]
CII recently published Seven Smart Practices for Shareowner Meetings containing excellent advice for issuers on best annual meeting practices. It contains nothing that might be considered cutting edge, so should be easy for all companies to follow. Although the guidance recommends hybrid, rather than virtual-only meetings, it contains no discussion of how electronically transmitted questions […]