Investor Stewardship Group Launches Stewardship Framework for 2018 The Investor Stewardship Group (link), a collective of some of the largest U.S.-based institutional investors and global asset managers, along with several of their international counterparts, announced the launch of the Framework for U.S. Stewardship and Governance, a historic, sustained initiative to establish a framework of basic standards […]
Proxy Access at Apple (AAPL) will be one of the most important votes of the proxy season. Will shareholders settle for the board’s recently adopted “lite” version, akin to greenwashing, or will shareholders vote in favor of real proxy access? Boards, investors, and the corporate governance industrial complex are watching in anticipation. Your opportunity to vote […]
Water risks and and an Internet program from iiWisdom are the subjects of my last notes and photos from attending the Council of Institutional Investors Fall 2015 Conference in Boston. The Deep Dive on Water Risks was hosted by Ceres. The interactive Internet program from iiWisdom looks to be very handy for finding information contained in corporate proxies. Feel free […]
Florida SBA recently completed a study of the impact of its proxy voting in proxy contests. See Valuing the Vote: The Impact of Proxy Voting on SBA Portfolio Holdings. I’d love to see more such analysis at other funds. (more…)
The Coca-Cola Co (KO), which primarly manufactures and distributes various nonalcoholic beverages, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/29/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the vote of three funds when I checked and voted on 4/22/2015 (they now have more). I voted with management 58% of the time and assigned Coca-Cola a proxy score of […]
In a global first, a group of institutional asset owners and managers are jointly calling for comprehensive transparency and disclosure to be adopted as core principles in reform of the international taxation system to be put before the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane this weekend. The group including the £150B UK Local Authority Pension Fund […]
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 […]
Corporate Governance Publisher’s Note: Yes, you’ll find many broken links in the material referenced below. 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. More about the WABAC machine. […]
I’ve previously written two posts on California’s Savings Plus program and how one major contractor, Northern Trust has voted. (Part I & Part II) Below, I compare the votes of Northern Trust on proxy proposals with those recommended by the AFL-CIO. A similar exercise could be performed at any deferred compensation plan. Shareholders have voting rights, […]
The State Board of Administration of Florida (Florida SBA) is the fourth largest public pension fund in the US and was early to announce their votes in advance of annual meetings. Those announcements can be found on the Florida SBA site, as well as on Proxy Democracy. The following is from a press release that Florida […]
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 […]
Below is an email I sent to Pensions & Investments (P&I) editorial chief Barry Burr praising their editorial enhancing fiduciary duty and opining on how it may speed the arrival of the time when retail investors will vote their values with the simple push of a button or two on their cell phones. I will follow […]
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 […]
Apple Inc. (NASD:AAPL) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 2/28/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org was down for maintenance when I checked and voted on 2/19/2014, so no voting advice there. I checked a few other sources such as CalPERS, Florida SBA and OTPP but none had disclosed their votes on their sites as of yesterday. I voted […]
The Corporate Governance Analyst position will perform duties housed within the SBA’s Investment Programs & Governance unit, covering record-keeping and reporting on all public equity shareowner proxies for annual and special shareowner meetings and related topics. (more…)
Several nice articles appeared recently in the FT on Norges, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund with $760bn in assets. Sorry, I didn’t save the titles but links to three are here, here and here. Well worth reading at the source. With assets worth twice Norway’s annual non-oil economic output and after quadrupling in size in eight […]
I’ve started to use Sharegate.com to network with other shareowners around specific companies. The first company I’m working on through Sharegate is Reeds (REED). I think our company’s product line is strong but management and the board appear to be weak in distribution skills. After years of refining and growing their fine products, #REED still is not profitable. […]
Netflix, Inc. ($NFLX) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/7/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked on 5/25/2013. I voted with management only 10% of the time. View Proxy Statement. NFLX is another supposedly high-tech company with no hyperlinks in their proxy statement. In fact, they don’t even include […]
Canadian National Railway ($CNI) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 4/23/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked on 4/21/2013. I voted with management 13% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote each item on the proxy. Any items left blank will be voted […]
I waited until almost the last minute hoping to get proxy advice from my usual sources, ProxyDemocracy.org and MoxyVote.com. However, little has been forthcoming… nothing from Proxy Democracy as I write this. Based on Moxy Vote information and recommendations from As You Sow, I went ahead and voted against two directors: Howard Schultz and Javier G. Teruel. I voted […]
I followed the lead of Calvert and Florida SBA, as reported by ProxyDemocracy.org, and voted with management down the line. I voted through the MoxyVote.com platform but they had no “advocates” weighing in on this ADS.
I found no advance voting recommendations or advocates regarding Berkshire Hathaway from either ProxyDemocracy.org or MoxyVote.com. No items were on the proxy other than election of directors. There seems to be a slight glitch on MoxyVote.com, since it only appeared to allow voting in favor of all director candidates or withholding. That wan’t a problem […]
The Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) released its mid-year investment performance for the period ending December 31, 2009, highlighting an investment gain of 16.3% in the Florida Retirement System Pension Plan (FRS) since the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. Last June, the fund had net assets totaling $99.6 billion, compared to $113.1 billion […]
Mutual Funds: Pass Through Voting? Various studies have shown that mutual funds often place their own interest in asset gathering ahead of their fiduciary duties. After studying proxy voting by US funds, Jennifer S. Taub (of UMass) concludes one option might be to “borrow from British reforms by creating a uniform set of best practices […]
Delaware Court of Chancery has made important rulings concerning stock option plans for directors and the issuance of stock to directors in Noerr v. Greenwood and Linton v. Everett. According to Edward P. Welch and Andrew J. Turezyn, the cases “counsel directors and their legal advisors to consider carefully such issues as fairness, disclosure to […]