A Gender Pay Scorecard released by Arjuna Capital f0r Equal Pay Day finds only Citigroup earning an “A” grade, while 23 of 46 large companies evaluated got failing grades of “F.” Continue Reading →
Tag Archives | Bank of America
Citi to Address Gender Pay Gap
Citi reached an historic agreement to disclose wage data and adjust employee salaries in a company-wide effort to achieve gender pay equity. Arjuna Capital agreed to withdraw its gender pay shareholder resolution after the agreement.
Citigroup (Citi) and Arjuna Capital disclosed that Citi is taking steps to provide gender and ethnicity wage data and commit to closing the gap, making it the first U.S. bank to respond to shareholder concerns. In response to Citi’s steps, Arjuna Capital withdrew its gender pay shareholder proposal on Monday, January 15, 2018. Continue Reading →
Harrington Wins Proxy Access at Bank of America
Bank of America (BAC) shareholders can now look forward to nominating candidates to the Board of Directors in a deal negotiated by John Harrington, CEO of Harrington Investments, Inc., (HII) a socially responsible investment advisory firm based in Napa. The Bank adopted new “proxy access” bylaws reflecting changes driven by Harrington’s shareholder resolution. Continue Reading →
Video Friday: Are You "Overboarded"?
TK Kerstetter, Chairman, NYSE Governance Services – Corporate Board Member interviews Scott Cutler, EVP, of NYSE Euronext. Continue Reading →
Proxy Access at Bank of America May 8th
Re opposition to John Harrington’s proxy access proposal at Bank of America ($BAC), based on language that I helped develop. For background, see Bank of America (BAC) Faces Proxy Access on May 8th. I hope opponents will reconsider. From one analysis recommending a vote against:
While this amount ($660 million) is significant in absolute terms, shareholders may have divergent views on whether it constitutes a meaningful ownership interest for the purpose of nominating board candidates. Historical voting results show little investor support for proposed access rights with low ownership thresholds, particularly when such thresholds fall well below the 3 percent threshold adopted by the SEC in its now-vacated proxy access rule. (my emphasis and addition of the $660M figure) Continue Reading →
Proxy Access Proposals Move Forward
On March 26, 2012, SEC staff issued their decision on a request by iRobot (IRBT) to exclude my proxy access proposal from their proxy. Although similar proposals had survived no-action requests last year, IRB management held out hopes that small changes made in the proposal might have made the proposal “vague” under rule 14a-8(1)(3) or “ordinary business” under rule 14a-8(1)(7). SEC staff could not concur and therefore advised IRBT not to omit my proposal based on those rules. Continue Reading →
Agency Capitalism: Corrective Measures (Part 2)
This is Part 2 of a post which started out reviewing the important thesis outlined in The Agency Costs of Agency Capitalism: Activist Investors and the Revaluation of Governance Rights by Ronald J. Gilson and Jeffrey N. Gordon (January 1, 2013). See Agency Capitalism: Corrective Measures Part 1 and Part 3. Current law encourages mindless indexing of portfolios and voting like lemmings to fulfill fiduciary duties. While Gilson and Gordon stressed the need for activist hedge funds, below I explore some additional options. Continue Reading →
Ground-Breaking Proxy Proposals Headed to Shareowner Vote
Climate Change Portfolio Exposure
Boston Common Asset Management has a proposal that will appear on the proxy of PNC Financial Services ($PNC) requesting that it report to shareowners on the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from its lending portfolio and its exposure to climate change risk in its lending, investing, and financing activities. Watch for your proxy. The annual meeting will be held on April 23, 2012. According to the proposal, Continue Reading →
Bank of America (BAC): What Would We Do As Owners?
Bank of America executives, investors, and opponents alike reacted with surprise to yesterday’s news—posted for two hours on Dow Jones Newswire and elsewhere—that the mammoth financial institution, realizing it was heading for a taxpayer bailout, was asking Americans to start thinking about what they’ll do with the bank once they own it, and to start advertising that vision too. Continue Reading →
Companies Use Range of Arguments to Exclude Proxy Access Proposals
Of the 16 proxy access proposals filed by proponents in 2012 and listed on the ISS Checklist, eight are being challenged at the SEC. Ferro, Hewlett-Packard, Nabors Industries, CME Group, Pioneer Natural Resources, Staples and Charles Schwab have not sought no-action relief from proposals at the commission, according to data from ISS. Conversely, Bank of America, Chiquita Brands International, MEMC Electronic Materials, Sprint Nextel, Textron, Goldman Sachs, Western Union and Wells Fargo have asked the SEC for permission to omit the proposals. Continue Reading →
Governance is More than Skin Deep!
In a recent Forbes article entitled Warren Buffett, And His Board, May be Too Old to Run Berkshire Hathaway, Francine McKenna makes the case for both greater vigilance by Berkshire investors (including the author) and a different concept of corporate governance.
Ms. McKenna may well be right as to her ultimate conclusion, although Berkshire’s performance over time should give us pause as to whether directors have ‘lost it’. However, her argument that regulators should be involved in this determination illustrates what is wrong with current governance theory. She invokes Prof. Larcker’s treatise on governance as a point of reference as to whether board members are ‘too busy’, discusses the process by which key decisions are made – e.g. the recent $5 billion investment in Bank of America supposedly made by Mr. Buffett while bathing – and discusses at length the ages of board members. Yet none of this has anything to do with the quality of the decision-making or any external exposure which should concern regulators.
One can justifiably argue against (as well as for) the BofA transaction, but the ages of decision-makers and the venue for the decision have nothing to do with its quality. Essentially the same decision-makers were involved in the decision to acquire all of Burlington Northern Railroad, which has thus far been a huge success for Berkshire. Ditto for the 2008 investments in Goldman Sachs preferred stock, which not only paid off handsomely for Berkshire, but also played a role in stabilizing the economy. Are we to believe that 2-3 years have taken a major toll on the competence of the board?
Even assuming that there is some reason for such a belief, is there any reason Continue Reading →