Tag Archives | blank votes

Reforms at ProxyVote Don’t Go Far Enough

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. BR, launched a newly upgraded ProxyVote site, which improves the shareholder communication and proxy voting experience for individual shareholders. Read the press release below, then my commentary. “ProxyVote.com has long been a key technology in the corporate governance process,” said Broadridge Investor Communications Solutions President Robert Schifellite. “Since its launch more than 17 years ago, usage has grown tremendously […]

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Corporate Elections: Looking in the Wrong Places

Bartlett Naylor, Financial Policy Reform Advocate, and Taylor Lincoln, Research Director, both with Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, wrote an excellent post recently, Looking for Conflict in All the Wrong Places. They criticize the the Congressional hearing entitled “Examining the Market Power and Impact of Proxy Advisory Firms.” Instead of proxy advisors, Congress should be looking […]

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SEC's IAC Seeks Input for Agenda

The Dodd-Frank Act established the Investor Advisory Committee (IAC) to advise the Securities and Exchange Commission on regulatory priorities, the regulation of securities products, trading strategies, fee structures, the effectiveness of disclosure, and on initiatives to protect investor interests and to promote investor confidence and the integrity of the securities marketplace. The IAC met for […]

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Proxy Access Win at Nabors (NBR)

As Joann Lublin reported in the WSJ, Nabors Owners Back Proxy Access Resolution. Shareowners finally won a proxy access proposal! As far as I’m concerned, the proposal is weak (3% stake held for 3 years) but it is a win none-the-less. (more…)

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ProxyVote.com Encourages Zombie Voting

Proxyvote.com encourages voting by retail shareholders by allowing them to, with one click, set all votes “for” a corporate board’s recommendations, from electing directors and approving executive pay to adopting anti-takeover defenses. Are they just facilitating voting by a group, “whose participation in corporate elections has been in decline of late,” as Broadridge claims, or […]

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Blanks Votes: Australia & US

It is great to see Manifest, the proxy voting agency, raising the issue of management voting proxy items left blank by shareowners. In the majority of markets with developed shareholder voting procedures, for each proposal, the shareholder has three choices; to vote for, against or abstain. Alternatively, shareholders can actively elect for the chairman to […]

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Shareholder Democracy Summit Coming to Toronto: Blank Vote Issue

The Canadian Society of Corporate Secretaries announces the Shareholder Democracy Summit ─ a Canadian first. CSCS has invited key stakeholders to gather this coming fall on October 24 and 25 in Toronto for an important national summit on shareholder democracy. CSCS President Lynn Beauregard announced today that invitations to register for the Shareholder Democracy Summit […]

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Don't Let Them Get Away With Stealing Elections

Glyn Holton’s How To Steal a Corporate Election informs us of recent outrages on how elections are tipped in favor of entrenched managers and boards. If you’ve taken the time to read his post, I urge you to take another five minutes to help remedy the situation. To address the situation at American Tower Corporation […]

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How I Voted at Hain, Cisco & Accuray

I waited too long to vote on the MoxyVote.com platform. However, even waiting until the day before the meeting, I was still only able to get minimal advice. I hearty thanks goes out to CalSTRS and their cooperation with ProxyDemocracy.org. At least they had announced votes for Hain and Accuray as I cast my votes […]

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Open eMail to NYSE Re Blank Votes

Janet Kissane, SVP & Corporate Secretary NYSE Euronext Legal & Government Affairs Dear Ms. Kissane: Earlier this month the NYSE announced it intends to amend NYSE Rule 452 to prohibit members from voting uninstructed shares if the matter to be voted on relates to executive compensation, including “say-on-pay” proposals, at meetings occurring after July 21, 2010. An exception will be […]

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An Open Proposal for Client Directed Voting

According to the SEC, “client directed voting” will be included in a forthcoming concept release on “proxy plumbing” issues and SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro now indicates review by the Commission is forthcoming (see this post on the Forum). It is critical that shareowners become familiar with this term. The SEC can shape their concept […]

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"Corrected" Ballot at Altrea Tips Votes to Management

The latest development in the case of unfair ballots favoring management at Altrea is that Broadridge has now “corrected” the language on their voter information form (VIF) for the shareowner proposal to eliminate supermajority voting requirements. However, the “correction” fails to accurately portray the proposal at all, and simply places yet another hurdle in the […]

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David vs Goliath

The 2-15-10 court brief from Apache includes the following statement: “When it comes to shareholder proposals, Apache is the ‘David’ and Chevedden is the ‘Goliath.’ ” That seems strange to me coming from a company with a $33 billion market cap. I know John Chevedden and he is no Warren Buffet, when it comes to […]

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Support Petition to Keep Blank Votes Blank

This morning, the SEC held a hearing on proxy access. By a three to two vote, Commissioners voted for proxy access. Democracy in corporate governance will dramatically improve with our right to nominate and elect directors, even if limited to 25% of the board. Directors may actually begin to feel dependent on the will of […]

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