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 […]
Gadfly importance to democratic corporate governance is often underrated. We are currently under attack by the Business Roundtable (BRT) and others seeking to substantially raise the ownership threshold for submitting and resubmitting proposals. BRT, for example, contends proposals from small shareholder divert “significant time and resources to issues that, at best, have an attenuated connection to the […]
Some corporations and lobbying organizations claim small shareholders (Chevedden, McRitchie/Young, and the Steiners) submit 40% of proposals, most fail and we are forcing companies to waste money. Actually, small shareholders are critical to democracy. This is an old complaint. A 1947 hearing on proxy rules before a House Committee charged shareholder proposal rules would provide a […]
William Steiner recently became the most experienced shareholder activist alive to win majority votes for shareholder proposals at public companies. A few months ago, he celebrated 40 years of shareholder activism with an overwhelming victory at Haemonetics Corporation (HAE). The following is based on an interview with Mr. Steiner by his son, Kenneth Steiner, who […]
Sonoco Products ($SON) recently sought no-action relief from the SEC to omit a proxy access shareholder proposal by William Steiner. The Division of Corporation Finance denied their request. The 1% now owns as much worldwide as the 99%, so why should Sonoco limit shareholder proposals and presenters to the 2%? I was happy to play […]
Yesterday, I posted a recent letter to the editor of Pensions & Investments praising their editorial, Winning Over Proxy Voters, which argues that institutional investors have a fiduciary duty to announce their proxy votes in advance of annual meetings, if doing so is likely to influence voters. If institutional investors heed their call, it will speed […]
Re opposition to John Harrington’s proxy access proposal at Bank of America ($BAC), based on language that I helped develop. For background, see Bank of America (BAC) Faces Proxy Access on May 8th. I hope opponents will reconsider. From one analysis recommending a vote against: While this amount ($660 million) is significant in absolute terms, shareholders may have […]
John Chevedden forwarded a report he received from on Apache’s annual meeting. No one spoke on the vote [ballot] items. I saw no press. The meeting length was 1.5 hours and well presented. There was a power point presentation by all three execs. Estimated attendance is 400 persons. I think mostly employees. Farris spoke the […]
If you know anything about Lewis D. Gilbert, you probably know that when he attended his first shareowner’s meeting, at New York City’s Consolidated Gas Company in 1932, he was ignored by the chairman when trying to ask a question. Gilbert felt he had been “publicly humiliated by one of my own employees.” He quit […]
What would you do if the company in which you’ve invested your hard-earned dollars threw it away on fat retirement benefits to outside members of its board of directors? One individual investor, Richard Ayers, conducted a proxy battle this year with Nevada Power Company over the issue. Although he won more than 30% of the vote, […]