Tag Archives | Jackie Cook

Jackie Cook

Jackie Cook 3/21 on CEO Pay & Gender Parity

3/21 Jackie Cook: 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern – Register  Jackie holds the position of Director, Stewardship, Product Strategy & Development at Morningstar, leading Sustainalytics’ ESG Voting Policy Overlay service.  She previously held the role of Director of Investment Stewardship Research.  Her research covers investor active ownership practices, proxy voting trends, and corporate governance.  Jackie […]

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2021 Morningstar Investment Conference

2021 Morningstar Investment Conference

2021 Morningstar Investment Conference moved deeply into ESG impact investing but remained relatively light on voting advice and education. At least one panel and one speaker did focus somewhat on voting. Below are a few brief notes. Unusually, the 2021 Morningstar Investment Conference was held on the same days as the Fall CII Conference. (more…)

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True Shareholder Democracy

True Shareholder Democracy: NYTimes

True Shareholder Democracy? Jeff Sommer at the New York Times thinks he’s glimpsed the future. (A Glimpse of a Future With True Shareholder Democracy) He is off the mark but focuses on a fundamental issue, John Coates’ The Problem of Twelve. Should twelve people control US public companies? True Shareholder Democracy? More important than INDEX’s […]

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Shareholder Rights in 2021 graphic by Jackie Cook of Morningstar

Shareholder Rights in 2021

SEC to Protect Shareholder Rights in 2021 Shareholder rights in 2021 will strengthen if recent speculation is realized. U.S. Senate Democrats aim to undo Trump-era shareholder voting rights rule. Shareholder Rights in 2021: History As discussed elsewhere on CorpGov.net (Review: Carl Gershenson). After its founding, the SEC was largely a champion of shareholder rights, requiring companies […]

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Climate Risk Hypocrites

Climate Risk Hypocrites

Climate Risk Hypocrites exposed by Morningstar’s Jackie Cook and Tom Lauricella. The authors found support for climate-related proposals rose at Fidelity, State Street Global Advisors, and Vanguard. Support fell at American Funds and BlackRock. (Top Fund Companies’ Climate Change Votes: A Very Mixed Picture) (more…)

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SEC Trampled Shareholder Rights

SEC Trampled Shareholder Rights

SEC Trampled Rights. September 23 was a bad day for shareholders, society, and the environment. It was an action typical of the Trump Administration, where political appointees work counter to the missions of regulatory bodies. The only significant “support” for the amendments from shareholders came from a few fake letters, which Chairman Clayton read into […]

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Shareholder-Driven Stakeholderism

Shareholder-Driven Stakeholderism

Shareholder-Driven Stakeholderism (U of Chicago) by Cathy Hwang and Yaron Nili argues the Business Roundtable Statement of the Purpose of a Corporation should be seen as another way to entrench management, instead of disarming greedy profit-driven shareholders. Analysis of data, drawn from companies in the S&P 1500, found shareholders, not management, “have been the driving force behind […]

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Predatory Value Extraction

Predatory Value Extraction

Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored (Kindle/Hardcover), by William Lazonick and Jang-Sup Shin, chronicles how agency theory and ‘maximizing shareholder value’ (MSV) led to looting of publicly traded companies. As many of us sit home waiting out the COVID-19 pandemic, […]

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SHARE Summit 2020

SHARE Summit 2020

SHARE Summit 2020 was a first for me. I had never attended a conference put on by Canada’s Shareholder Association for Research and Education. I encourage Americans to learn from our northern neighbors. Next year’s Summit will be in Toronto, so may be more accsssible to most readers than this year’s in Vancouver. (more…)

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Constructive Engagement - USSIFESGshareholderproposals 2016-2018

Constructive Engagement

Constructive engagement is, supposedly, the primary reason for the SEC’s proposed new rules. As Chairman Clayton noted, Today’s proposed amendments follow from the staff’s extensive experience with shareholder proposals and recognize the significant changes that have taken place in our markets in the decades since these regulatory requirements were last revised, including, in particular, the […]

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Shareholders v Stakeholders

Shareholders v Stakeholders

Shareholders v Stakeholders is in the news again, driven by the Business Roundtable. Someone asked Quora: Regarding corporate social responsibility, do you agree more with the shareholder view or the stakeholder view theory? Below is my response with a few edits, after some additional thought. (more…)

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Sustainability at Morningstar

Sustainability at Morningstar

Sustainability at Morningstar (Morningstar Investment Conference #MICUS) in Chicago was an important topic, growing in popularity. As posted, their research found “72% of the United States population expressed at least a moderate interest in sustainable investing.” Nice to know many value a habitable planet as well as profits. However, research from Morningstar also finds we […]

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We Three Kings - Caleb Griffin

We Three Kings: Sharetopia

We Three Kings: Disintermediating Voting at the Index Fund Giants (download at SSRN) by Caleb N. Griffin provides insight as to how investors could influence the Big Three index funds — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, as those funds exercise increasing power over the economy. Like me, Griffin is interested in extending democracy to corporate […]

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Proxy Voting Alignment

Proxy Voting Alignment Will Drive Index Fund Competition

Proxy voting alignment with client values will drive competition between index funds. Most index funds have low fees and earn close to the same rate of return for their investors. How can they differentiate themselves? SEC Commissioner Rob Jackson Jr. implies competition should be driven, at least in part, by funds aligning their proxy votes with […]

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American Values

Internet Will Drive Public Opinion and Proxy Voting to Reflect American Values

American values were recognized as at risk in 1932 when Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means argued that with dispersed shareholders, ownership has been separated from their control. (The Modern Corporation and Private Property) Ironically, concentration of equities under the umbrella of three or four indexed funds presents an opportunity to end that divide and make companies […]

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Overpai CEOs

The 100 Most Overpaid CEOs: Take Action

The 100 Most Overpaid CEOs: Are Fund Managers Asleep at the Wheel? is the second such report from As You Sow in two years. I hope it continues as an annual tradition. I urge everyone to read it. Rosanna Landis Weaver, Jackie Cook and others contributing to this project did a great job. As Nell Minow said of […]

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Two More Proxy Season Reviews

Two more reviews of the 2013 proxy season came out the other day. The quickest read is from Jackie Cook at CookESG (Proxy Season Roundup: Shareholder Resolutions) who analyzed 502 shareholder-sponsored resolutions voted between July 2012 and June 2013. Two-thirds are governance-related, averaging 41% support. One-third address social and environmental issues, with an average 21% level […]

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1,788 Upcoming Annual Meetings in May

Operating as CookESG Research, Jackie Cook specializes in securities-related corporate disclosure analysis, particularly with respect to environmental and governance issues. We’ve updated our handy list of upcoming annual general meetings thanks to CookESG Research. (more…)

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How Mutual Funds Voted on Political Disclosures

As we look back on the 2012 elections one thing is clear, money flowed like water with any barrier that might have contained it removed by Citizens United. Writing for the court in the 5-4 decision, Judge Kennedy opined: With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed […]

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Corporate Governance Quick Bites

Holly Gregory’s post Applying Securities Laws to Social Media Communications is the best I’ve seen on when the SEC’s Enforcement Division is likely to recommend an enforcement case to the Commission based on the potential for liability arising from disclosures by corporate officers through social media. As widely reported, including by WSJ, Netflix and CEO Reed Hastings both received Wells Notices from […]

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Upcoming Shareowner Meetings

Powered by Jackie Cook’s Fund Votes, a handy list of upcoming meetings. Research voting guidelines at FundVotes, how respected funds and advocates have voted at Proxy Democracy and MoxyVote. Vote proxies using Moxy Vote’s (more…)

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Bogle Spinning in His Grave: Vanguard, a "Pay Enabler"

No, he isn’t dead but he might as well be as far as his ability to influence Vanguard, the giant mutual fund he founded. John Bogle wants funds to introduce resolutions at companies requiring a 75% shareowner vote in order to make political contributions. Yet, Vanguard has never introduced a single shareowner resolution anywhere that […]

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