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 […]
Professor Gensler Congratulations. When confirmed to chair the SEC, you can take a major role in reconstructing our financial and economic systems. Below, I offer the unsolicited advice of a real “Main Street” investor. Central to a recovery that helps America address its many issues (institutional racism, inequality, climate change, anomie, etc.) is a system […]
As I have been mentioning, I will be on a panel at the 2/19 SEC Roundtable discussing how to increase retail shareholder participation in the proxy process. It is the night before the event; so I’m trying to boil it all down, knowing I’ll probably only get a few minutes to say anything. The previous posts are […]
The last set of questions for panel at the 2/19 SEC Roundtable deal with client directed voting (CDV). Below are a few thoughts with the help of readers. I welcome further comments. The SEC agenda and questions are in bold italics. Our thoughts are in normal type. Part 1 is here. This panel will focus on […]
(1/27/2015) The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it will host a roundtable on February 19 to explore ways to improve the proxy voting process. The roundtable, which will be held at the SEC’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, will focus on universal proxy ballots and retail participation in the proxy process. I will be a member […]
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 […]
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 […]
On November 27, 2013 the SEC Announced the agenda and panelists for their 12/5/2013 Roundtable On Proxy Advisory Services. In the first session, participants will discuss, among other topics, the current use of proxy advisory services, including the factors that may have contributed to their use, the purposes and effects of using the services, and […]
On September 22, the HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation posted an article (The Promise of the Enhanced Broker Internet Platform) from John Endean, President of the American Business Conference, a coalition of CEOs of mid-cap companies. I attempted to post a comment on the HLS Forum but it appears to have fallen through the cracks. […]
This is Part 3 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) in Agency Capitalism: Corrective Measures (Part 1). In this post and in Agency Capitalism: Corrective Measures (Part 2) I hope […]
The deadline for comments on this important NYSE rulemaking that must be approved by the SEC is today, March 15, 2013, so act now or forever regret not taking action. See the rulemaking and comments already posted to SEC site. I’m concerned that provisions meant to facilitate voting on broker platforms may lead us right back into what […]
The new SEC Investor Advisory Committee (SECIAC) met for the first time last week. It appears there may be agreement by Committee members to first concentrate their efforts on retail investors. At least that was the message of several Committee members and the expressed wish of Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar. The SECIAC would do well to recommend […]
The Council of Institutional Investors published an independent assessment of client directed voting, a topic that is under consideration by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its wide-ranging review of the U.S. proxy system. The paper was written by Alan Beller, Janet Fisher and Rebecca Tabb of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb […]
Interesting article, Who Will Pay for Client-Directed Voting?, at the Securities Industry Blog on August 10, 2010, asks: Will the SEC approve it? Even if it did, who would build the technology to implement it and who will pay for it? Or, maybe the answer is would the SEC approve it without knowing that someone […]
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 […]
The SEC has given notice they will hold an Open Meeting on July 14, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. to consider issuing a Concept Release on proxy mechanics and soliciting public comment as to whether the Commission should consider revisions to its rules to promote greater efficiency and transparency in the U.S. proxy system and enhance […]
Historically, most retail shareowners have tossed their proxies. During the first year under the “notice and access” method for Internet delivery of proxy materials, less than 6% voted. This contrasts with almost all institutional investors voting, since they have a fiduciary duty to do so. “Client directed voting” (CDV), a term coined by Stephen Norman […]