Procter & Gamble Co (NYSE:PG) provides consumer packaged goods and is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their next annual meeting is October 13, 2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked and voted. I voted with the Board’s recommendations 56% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the Procter & Gamble proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Kite Pharma Inc (NASD:KITE), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focused on the development and commercialization of novel cancer immunotherapy products and is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/8/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the vote of one fund when I checked and voted on 6/1/2015. However, I also picked up the votes of CalSTRS. I voted with management 50% of the time and assigned Kite Pharma, Inc. a proxy score of 50. Continue Reading →
DigitalGlobe Inc (NYSE:DGI) one of the stocks in my portfolio, offers earth imagery products comprising imagery from its constellation of high-resolution satellites, as well as satellite and aerial imagery acquired from third party suppliers. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/26/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of two funds when I checked on 5/15/2015. I voted with Board recommendations 33% of the time. Continue Reading →
Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (NYSE:SNI) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. They develop lifestyle-oriented content for television and the Internet with various television and interactive brands. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/12/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 5/5/2015. I voted with management 50% of the time and assigned Scripps Networks Interactive a proxy score of 50. Continue Reading →
Marriott International Inc $MAR is one of the stocks in my portfolio. They operate and franchise of hotels, corporate housing properties, and timeshare properties under numerous brand names which includes Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club, The Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, EDITION, Autograph Collection, AC Hotels by Marriott, Renaissance Hotels, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Courtyard by Marriott, SpringHill Suites by Marriott, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott, TownePlace Suites by Marriott, Marriott ExecuStay, Marriott Executive Apartments, Marriott Vacation Club, Grand Residences by Marriott. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/8/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 4/30/2015. I voted with management 71% of the time and assigned Marriott International a proxy score of 71. Continue Reading →
Kimberly Clark Corp (KMB), which manufactures and markets personal care, consumer tissue, and K-C professional products, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/30/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the vote of four funds when I checked and voted on 4/24/2015. I voted with management 57% of the time and assigned Kimberly Clark a proxy score of 57.
View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the Kimberly Clark 2015 proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Fluor Corporation (FLR), which provides engineering, procurement, construction, fabrication and modularization, commissioning and maintenance, and project management services worldwide, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/30/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the vote of one fund when I checked and voted on 4/23/2015. I voted with management 64% of the time and assigned Fluor Corporation a proxy score of 64.
View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the Fluor Corporation 2015 proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which researches, develops, manufactures, and sells various products in the health care field worldwide, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/23/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the vote of three funds when I checked and voted on 4/17/2015. I voted with management 44% of the time and assigned Johnson & Johnson a proxy score of 44.
View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the Johnson & Johnson 2015 proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Symantec Corporation (NASD:SYMC), which provides security, backup, and availability solutions worldwide, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 10/28/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 10/22/2014. I voted with management 55% of the time and assigned them a proxy score of 55. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the Symantec 2014 proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
H&R Block $HRB, which provides tax preparation and related services to the general public, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their next annual meeting is September 11, 2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 9/7/2014. I also checked the votes of OTPP and CalSTRS. All advance disclosers that I know of except CBIS voted in favor of all items. I voted with the Board’s recommendations 54% of the time and assigned them a proxy score of 54. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the H&R Block proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value.
Shareowners Upholding Industry
Yesterday, I posted a recent letter to the editor of Pensions & Investments praising their editorial, Winning Over Proxy Voters, which argues that institutional investors have a fiduciary duty to announce their proxy votes in advance of annual meetings, if doing so is likely to influence voters. If institutional investors heed their call, it will speed the development of open client director voting (CDV) and more intelligent proxy votes.
As corporate power grows and the power of government falls, mechanisms to govern corporations become more important. As government power falls, their power to regulate corporations falls as well. Further, as the influence of corporations over governments increases (e.g. lobbying) the will of governments to regulate corporations also falls. – CHR for Social Responsibility
Historically, most retail shareowners toss their proxies. During the first year under the “notice and access” method for Internet delivery of proxy materials, less than 6% made use of their proxy votes. Those that do vote own disproportionately more shares (about 25-30% of total retail shares). The voting rate hasn’t improved much, if at all. This contrasts with almost all institutional investors voting, since they have a fiduciary duty to do so. Unfortunately, it isn’t time/cost efficient to read through the entire proxy to vote a few retail shares intelligently. Continue Reading →
Premiere Global Services, $PGI, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is June 17, 2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 6/11/2014. I voted with the board’s recommendations 40% of the time, thus assigned a proxy score of 40. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the PGI proxy in order to enhance PGI’s corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is June 6, 2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked and voted on 5/31/2014. I voted with management 58% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the WMT proxy in order to enhance corporate governance and long-term value. Continue Reading →
Marrone Bio Innovations (MBII): is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/29/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 5/23/2014. I voted with management 33% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my proxy voting recommendations for MBII. Continue Reading →
Illumina $ILMN is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/28/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked and voted on 5/20/2014. I voted with management 86% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Read Warnings below. What follows are my proxy voting recommendations for ILMN. Continue Reading →
McRitchie CMG Selfie
Just a brief post to thank shareowners at Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) for sending a strong message to the company’s board and management. 77% of shares were voted against the executive pay package and a majority supported our proposal to end supermajority voting requirements.
CalSTRS, Florida SBA, AFSCME, Calvert, Domini, Trillium, CBIS, CtW and many others joined to reject the non-binding say-on-pay measure and a proposed stock incentive plan. Both ISS and Glass Lewis recommended their clients vote against the package and the plan. Continue Reading →
Union Pacific Corporation $UNP, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/15/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 5/9/2014. I voted with management 53% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime)
I generally vote against pay packages where NEOs were paid above median in the previous year but make exceptions if warranted. According to Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Grinstein, Yaniv (The Growth of Executive Pay), aggregate compensation by public companies to NEOs increased from 5 percent of earnings in 1993-1995 to about 10 percent in 2001-2003. Continue Reading →
Gilead Sciences $GILD is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/7/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 4/28/2014. I voted with management 43% of the time. View GILD’s Proxy Statement, which has a linked Table of Contents.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) I generally vote against pay packages where NEOs were paid above median in the previous year but make exceptions if warranted. Continue Reading →
Bristol-Myers Squibb $BMY is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/6/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 4/28/2014. I voted with management 43% of the time. View BMY’s Proxy Statement, which at least has a linked Table of Contents. Continue Reading →
Fluor Corporation $FLR is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/1/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 4/28/2014. I voted with management 13% of the time. View FLR’s Proxy Statement, which is user friendly.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) I generally vote against pay packages where NEOs were paid above median in the previous year but make exceptions if warranted. Continue Reading →
International Business Machines Corp. $IBM, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/29/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked and voted on 4/22/2014. I voted with management 75% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →
The NCR Corporations $NCR, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/23/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked and voted on 4/18/2014. I voted with management 40% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Why no index with no links? That seems so basic. Perhaps NCR doesn’t want to make reading the proxy easy? Continue Reading →
The Coca-Cola Company $KO, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/23/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked and voted on 4/15/2014. I voted with management 63% of the time. View Proxy Statement, which by the way is very nice and user friendly. See 18 Cool Things about the proxy.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →
The Walt Disney Company, $DIS, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 3/18/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 3/9/2014. I voted with management 60% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Continue Reading →
Microsoft Corporation $MSFT is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/19/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of four funds when I checked (there have been more since). I voted with management 75% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →
H&R Block, Inc. $HRB is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 9/12/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked on 9/6/2013 and again on 9/9/2013. I voted with management 53% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Continue Reading →
Google (GOOG) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/6/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 5/23/2013. I voted with management 53% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/4/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 5/23/2013. I voted with management 75% of the time. View Proxy Statement.
Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) I generally vote against pay packages where NEOs were paid above median in the previous year but make exceptions if warranted. According to Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Grinstein, Yaniv (The Growth of Executive Pay), aggregate compensation by public companies to NEOs increased from 5 percent of earnings in Continue Reading →
Ellie Mae Inc (ELLI) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/29/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked on 5/19/2013. I voted with management 40% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →
NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/23/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 5/16/2013. I voted with management 69% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank are voted in favor of management’s recommendations. (See Broken Windows & Proxy Vote Rigging – Both Invite More Serious Crime) Continue Reading →