Chat Rooms are the key missing ingredient at virtual shareholder meetings. Virtual-only shareholder meetings increased dramatically (from 286 in 2019 to 2,200 so far in 2020) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Chat rooms before and after meetings would allow shareholders to interact informally with each other and with corporate representatives, as they do at in-person […]
Virtual meetings are quickly being adopted by entrenched boards who fear any attempt by shareholders, especially retail shareholders, to hold them accountable. Annual meetings are the only place shareholders are likely to meet with the managers and boards of the companies they invest in, as well as with employees of those companies and with other […]
The Norges Bank Investment Management (Norges), the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will publish its voting intentions prior to annual general stockholder meetings (AGMs) when it believes such action can help illustrate an important principle. (Norwegian oil fund to disclose voting intentions to illustrate ‘principle’) (more…)
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 annual […]
The “MyShares” App is a must have for shareholders, IR departments and consultancy firms of publicly listed companies across Europe and the US. Browse through the latest key corporate documents relating to the Annual / Extraordinary general meetings of listed companies across main indices. (more…)
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.
Five years ago in Corporate Governance Publisher’s Note: Yes, you’ll find many broken links. 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. Since 2005, KLD has studied the […]
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…)
Powered by Jackie Cook’s Fund Votes, a handy list of upcoming meetings. Research voting guidelines and meeting dates (more…)
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 […]
Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Widener University School of Law, Wilmington, Delaware gave the Keynote Speech to the Practical Law Institute’s Ninth Annual Directors’ Institute on Corporate Governance on September 7, 2011. In Too Busy to Think, Spread Too Thin to Matter: Making a Rational Stockholder Voting System an Agenda Item for Management/Investor Dialogue, he runs over […]
After 6 hours of continuous typing and close to 15 hours of editing, my notes from this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting are complete. At the end of it all, the total tally is over 18,000 words and over 24 pages of wisdom from Buffett and Munger. As always, these notes were taken by hand, […]
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 […]
A message from Jim Kristie, editor and associate publisher of Directors & Boards: Annual meetings can be a frustrating and often futile exercise — in meeting statutory requirements, yes, but not much else as a worthy vehicle for demonstrating corporate leadership and enhancing shareholder relations. Thus, the cover story for the first Directors & Boards […]
In the past we have reported on various outrages that have sometimes occurred at annual meetings, like when Whole Foods Markets denied an opportunity for a shareowner proponent to to present their resolution before the vote was taken in 2006. Months later, they issued the following response (Hole Foods Digs Out, 7/2006): After researching common […]