2U 2022 annual meeting is on June 8, 2022, at noon Pacific. It is a virtual-only meeting on the Broadridge platform. Of course, I recommend voting in advance, especially since many companies cut off voting as soon as proposals have been presented. To enhance corporate governance and long-term value, vote Against Coretha Rushing and Pay. Vote FOR […]
Alarm.com Holdings 2022 annual meeting will be in-person only on June 2, 2022, at 9:00 am Eastern, 8281 Greensboro Drive, Suite 100, Tysons, Virginia. I recommend voting in advance, especially since many companies cut off voting as soon as proposals have been presented. To enhance corporate governance and long-term value, vote Against Clarke, Whall, auditor, pay; FOR #4 Proxy […]
Aerovironment 2021 annual meeting is September 24, 9AM Pacific Time. To attend, vote, and submit questions during the Annual Meeting visit here. You will also need your 11-digit voter control number and password AVAV2021 (case sensitive). Of course, I recommend voting in advance. To enhance corporate governance and long-term value, vote FOR all items, including Transition […]
Redfin 2021 annual meeting is June 9, 8:30 AM Pacific Time. To attend, vote, and submit questions during the Annual Meeting visit here. Bring the 16-digit control number from your proxy card or voting instruction form. I recommend voting in advance. To enhance long-term value. Vote AGAINST Ligon and Slavet; FOR Auditor, Pay and Transition to […]
Alarm.com Holdings 2021 annual meeting is June 9, 6 AM Pacific Time. To attend, vote, and submit questions during the Annual Meeting visit here. You will need the 16-digit control number provided on your proxy card or voting instruction form. Warning: You will need to obtain a legal proxy and upload it at least 2-3 […]
Majority Voting 2021. Proxy proposals provide powerful tools to hold corporations accountable. YourStake.org is an online petition platform for financial advisors. The combined savings of many citizens make up the majority of investment into big companies. Companies already respond to big investors. Now they will respond to you if you let them know your concerns. Find a financial […]
Zillow Group 2020 annual meeting is 6/9/2020 at 2PM Pacific virtually by entering the eligible shareholder’s control number found on the proxy card. Meeting password: ZG2020. To enhance long-term value: Vote AGAINST Maffei, Hoag, and Incentive Plan. Vote FOR Elect Directors by Majority Vote. I would advise voting online by 6/8, since I have often […]
Facebook 2020 annual meeting is 5/27/2020 at 10AM Pacific virtually by entering the eligible shareholder’s 16-digit control number found on the proxy card. To enhance long-term value: Vote AGAINST Andreessen, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Auditor, Director Compensation. Vote FOR all shareholder proposals, especially Change in Shareholder Voting. See list of all virtual-only meetings maintained by ISS. Vote by 5/26 […]
Guidewire Software 2019 annual meeting is December 17th. To enhance long-term value: Vote FOR #5 – Majority Voting for the Election of Directors; #4 Eliminate Classified Board. AGAINST director Michael Keller and the auditor. Unfortunately, the meeting is virtual-only, instead of hybrid, so shareholders cannot meet each other, the directors or management. The board/management can also […]
CSP Directors Majority Vote requested in shareholder proposal for 2020 proxy season. This should be an easy but meaningful ask. More than 91% of S&P 500 use that standard. CSP’s market cap is about $55M, so CSP is a very small but even a majority of small-caps use a majority vote standard when electing directors. […]
Alphabet 2019 annual meeting is June 19th. To enhance long-term value WITHHOLD vote from all directors. Vote AGAINST all Board proposals and FOR all shareholder proposals, especially #4 to recapitalize shares. (more…)
Governance Fundamentals: Understanding Your Company’s Mechanics and Benchmarking. That was the title of the final spring 2019 SVDX/Rock Center program at Stanford Law on April 18. My cryptic notes below. (more…)
MBII elects directors by majority vote, effective March 15th 2019. Marrone Bio Innovations (MBII) amended its bylaws after a request by shareholder advocate James McRitchie and upon the recommendation of the Nominating and Governance Committee. The bylaws now provide that, in uncontested elections, MBII elects directors by majority vote of “For” and “Withheld” votes cast. […]
Netflix Approach to Governance: Genuine Transparency with the Board (download) by David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan takes a look at one aspect of corporate governance at Netflix and finds “a radically different approach to information sharing” by management with the Board. Shareholders are largely left out of the equation. Netflix Approach to Governance: Management Netflix Approach […]
The Board at Berry Global Group ($BERY) is moving toward more democratic governance, thanks to the efforts of a retail shareholder who would be denied the right to file proposals if the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and others had their way. The Berry Global Group has adopted proposals submitted by the same small retail […]
WD-40 win win is due to a shareholder proposal filed by James McRitchie and directors who want good corporate governance practices. Earlier this week, I reported that Broadridge amended its proxy proxy access bylaws to allow groups of 50 to nominate directors. Now WD-40 has filed bylaws to implement McRitchie’s proposal requesting that uncontested directors […]
Reed’s Inc. (REED), develops, manufactures, markets and sells fantastic natural non-alcoholic carbonated soft drinks and other confectionaries, such as Reed’s Ginger Brews; Virgil’s Root Beer, Cream Sodas, Dr. Better and Real Cola, including ZERO diet sodas; Culture Club Kombucha; China Colas; Reed’s Ginger candy and ice creams, and Sonoma Sparkler and other juice based products. Their […]
Reeds Board (REED); is it functional? As indicated in a previous post, it might be useful to try and apply the recently announced Commonsense Principles of Corporate Governance to Reed’s Inc. and their board of directors. This will probably be something of an exercise in futility with mostly blank spots, since Reeds is a very small company, […]
Alphabet (GOOGL), one of the companies in my portfolio, is a holding company. The Company holds interests in Google Inc. (Google). The Company’s segments include Google and Other Bets. Google segment includes Internet products, such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome, Google Play, and hardware products, including Chromecast, Chromebooks and Nexus, which […]
2nd update, 12/20/2015: Unpack your bags, cancel your flight and hotel. Reeds Inc. (REED) has postponed tomorrow’s annual meeting to 12/30/2015. Although the move may be costly to shareowners and our company, it may pay dividends in the long-run if REED finally starts paying more attention to shareowners, corporate governance and their legal obligations. REED made […]
NetGear, Inc. (NASD:NTGR), one of the stocks in my portfolio, is a global networking company that delivers products to consumers, businesses and service providers. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/2/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of one fund when I checked on 5/22/2015. I voted with Board recommendations 83% of the time. (more…)
SolarCity Corp (NASD:SCTY), one of the stocks in my portfolio, is a global networking company that delivers products to consumers, businesses and service providers. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/2/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of one fund when I checked on 5/25/2015. I voted with Board recommendations 17% of the time. (more…)
Proto Labs Inc (NYSE:PRLB), one of the stocks in my portfolio, is an online and technology-enabled quick-turn manufacturer of custom parts for prototyping and short-run production. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/20/2015. ProxyDemocracy.org had the votes of one fund when I checked and voted on 5/11/2015. I voted with management 100% of the time and assigned Proto Labs a proxy […]
The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (NASD:HAIN), which manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells organic and natural products, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/20/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked on 11/18/2014. Sorry for the late post. Today is the last day to vote online. I […]
With John Chevedden‘s help, I recently submitted shareowner proposals to United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) and The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN). Both have asked the SEC for no-action letters [UNFI (UNFI no-action 8-15-2014 pdf) and HAIN] because they plan to introduce their own proposals on the same subjects. The SEC is likely to grant both requests. Shouldn’t such actions […]
Last month, with the help of fellow ‘economy class investor’ John Chevedden, I submitted a proposal to Hain Celestial (HAIN) to adopt a full majority director election standard. Majority voting has become a widely prevalent practice in the S&P 500 index, with only 14% of companies failing to adopt this standard. Hain is in the […]
Medivation $MDVN, a promising biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to treat serious diseases, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their next annual meeting is June 27, 2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked and voted on 6/17/2014. I voted with the Board’s recommendations 91% of the time and assigned them a proxy score […]
Netflix (NFLX), is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is June 9, 2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 6/4/2014. I voted with management 27% of the time. View Proxy Statement (why no linked Table of Contents?) Read Warnings below. What follows are my recommendations on how to vote the NFLX proxy in […]
Google Inc, $GOOGL, is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 5/14/2014. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of three funds when I checked and voted on 5/8/2014. As I post this, I see they now have voting for five funds. I voted with management 41% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Warning: Be sure to vote […]
Recommended viewing this week is a discussion between TK Kerstetter, Chairman, NYSE Governance Services / Corporate Board Member and Scott Cutler, EVP, NYSE Euronext. Learn when directors most frequently get withhold votes. Shareholder communication is critical. To watch this one, you will need to go directly to This Week in the Boardroom. In our second of […]
I urge readers to support the June 20th petition by the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) to the NYSE and Nasdaq for the exchanges to require listed companies to elect directors by majority vote in uncontested elections. CII’s letters to both exchanges are posted here. (more…)
Netflix, Inc. ($NFLX) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/7/2013. I reported how I voted and why I am proposing proxy access in Netflix Needs Proxy Access – Proxy Score 10 Out of 100. I’ll just add that so far this year, insiders of NFLX have sold approximately 635M in shares […]
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 […]
The preliminary vote gave my “say on directors pay” less than 4%, so I guess putting that proposal up at the world’s largest most profitable company with so many happy shareowners may have been a mistake. However, I note that Apple cut the pay of a couple of directors from $1.2 million to about half […]
Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Widener University School of Law, Wilmington, Delaware gave the Keynote Speech to the Practical Law Institute’s Ninth Annual Directors’ Institute on Corporate Governance on September 7, 2011. In Too Busy to Think, Spread Too Thin to Matter: Making a Rational Stockholder Voting System an Agenda Item for Management/Investor Dialogue, he runs over […]