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 […]
Glyn Holton interviews Michael Yogg, author of the new book Passion for Reality: The Extraordinary Life of the Investing Pioneer Paul Cabot (Columbia Business School Publishing). Its about Paul Cabot, a pioneer of the mutual fund industry. In 1920s Boston, Cabot cofounded State Street Investment Corporation, one of the first open-ended mutual funds. (more…)
Years ago, the DC Court’s decision to vacate the SEC’s Rule 14a-11 had me thinking of possible approaches under Rule 14a-8 but also working around the whole access issue. With regard to short slates, I wavered between “field agents” attending annual meetings with “proxy assignments” to allow more wide-spread vote splitting to consideration of amendments […]
I recently wrote on what I thought were conflicting ideas. As I’ve indicated in the past, I disabled comments because of too much spam, even with filters. However, I encourage readers to comment via e-mail. Sometimes we get a good exchange. Here’s a recent example, starting with the first two paragraphs from the post, then […]
Thanks to Broc Romanek I learned of what he termed the Wildest Idea of the Year? Creating a “Vote Buying” Framework, July 29, 2013. Here’s part of his take: Two Professors from the U. of Chicago – Eric Posner and Glen Weyl – have used their economic backgrounds as a way to devise a solution to shareholders […]
As many readers may know, a few months ago I joined the board of the United States Proxy Exchange (USPX). I’ve long been impressed with the work of USPX’s volunteer executive director, Glyn Holton. We worked closely on several sets of comments to the SEC, Model Shareowner Proposal for Proxy Access and subsequent no-action responses, Shareowner Guidelines for Say-on-Pay […]
I get frequent alerts for news on shareowner activism from various sources. I’ve seen this press release sent out by Susman Godfrey L.L.P. concerning their win against a small shareowner pop up so many times I can no longer ignore it. (more…)
“Stunning,” “arbitrary,” “unjustifiied” … “questionable”: these are some of the words individual shareowners are using to describe the SEC handling of six corporations’ requests to be allowed to exclude the USPX model proxy access proposal from their 2012 proxy materials.* This week, the Commission’s staff approved every one of those requests. Corporate executives routinely solicit […]
ISS reported that Textron filed a Dec. 23 no-action petition with the SEC to omit a shareowner proposal from Ken Steiner that seeks proxy access using the model proposal developed by USPX. This appears to be the first no-action request filed on a proxy access proposal this season. The company asserts that Steiner’s resolution improperly constitutes multiple […]
In a year of hard-fought corporate governance battles, some of 2010’s biggest victories were won by a soft-spoken activist who shares his home office with Norman the cat. The growth of online communications has put new power in the hands of retail investors, who are reshaping the relationship between companies and their shareholders. One is […]
Hoping to put an end to the efforts by certain executives to frustrate the ability of shareowners to submit proposals, I joined with John Chevedden and Glyn Holton in providing written advice to Meredith Cross, Director Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC, on a proposed staff legal bulletin interpreting Rule 14a-8(b)(2). Our letter explains […]
As they have done for the past few years, Intel Corp. hosted a hybrid shareowner meeting today, allowing shareowners to attend in person or via the Internet. This meeting was important because Intel had planned to make it a virtual meeting, hosted exclusively on the Internet. A strong reaction from shareowners prompted Intel to back […]
The drama of a retail investor fending off a sweeping lawsuit by a $33 billion corporation took a dramatic turn today, as the United States Proxy Exchange (USPX) intervened, filing an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in Federal District Court in Houston. John Chevedden, a retail investor and champion of shareowner rights, is […]
Yesterday, Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Federal District Court in Houston issued an order (ApacheOrder) granting the United States Proxy Exchange (USPX) leave to file an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in Apache vs. Chevedden. The USPX had petitioned the court for leave on February 16, stating in part: Amicus curiae filings are […]
I was delighted to see Broc Romanek coverage of the controversy surrounding Apache v Chevedden, although he did so in a members only area of theCorporateCounsel.net. I hope the case gets a lot of attention. Yesterday, I was discussing a table I am working on that shows some of the rights denied to street name […]
The deadline was August 17th, so the comment letters on proxy access have all been filed and posted. Many are well worth reading. If you don’t see yours posted, you might want to resubmit it. TIAA-CREF, one of the more conservative shareowner activists, calls on the Commission to raise the threshold to 5% for shareowners at all […]