Money and Politics Get a Divorce. That would be a nice headline. It has been more than ten years since the US Supreme Court held that corporations could spend unlimited funds on election campaigns in their decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Money and Politics Get a Divorce: Still Waiting Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion […]
Petition for Real-Time Disclosure of Proxy Votes Abstract: Corporations have facilitated the most dynamic economic growth in history. Addressing adverse externalities, like dark money and climate change, has been hampered by dispersed ownership. Mechanisms are needed to define common values and increase individual empowerment within corporate dominated economies. Ironically, recent concentration of corporate ownership by […]
A Public Citizen report shows mutual funds hold back political spending transparency through their proxy voting behavior. Fully 64% of political spending disclosure shareholder proposals would have passed with majority support if major mutual funds owning more than 5% had voted in favor of them in 2016. The report, released during a telephone press conference last week, […]
I stumbled on an interesting series of videos from the Investment Company Institute, which bills itself as “a leading global association of regulated funds, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), closed-end funds, and unit investment trusts (UITs) in the United States and similar funds offered to investors in jurisdictions worldwide.” Of course these funds have a […]
This is the second of a three part series. See also Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 1): Editorial Calls For Advanced Disclosure and Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 3): Take Action. A major landmark in establishing a fiduciary duty for proxy voting was the Department of Labor’s (DOL) 1988 Avon Letter, which was based on specific sections […]
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…)
Guest post from Shriram Subramanian, founder of InGovern Research Services with the objective of facilitating shareholder activism by institutional investors and thereby enhancing corporate governance in India. Proxy Advisory Services, Corporate Governance Research, Risk Monitoring, and Proxy Services. India’s SEBI, through a circular dated March 24th, 2014, released a new set of disclosure guidelines to be followed by mutual funds. These […]
SocialFunds.com – Mutual Fund Challenged over Proxy Voting on ESG Issues Read this important post from Robert Krupp and follow the example of Zevin Asset Management. It is great to see Jackie Cook’s 2013 Proxy Season Roundup put to good use. Cook found (more…)
Last week I followed up on a proposal made in early 2010 as a result of a couple of resolutions I was able to get enacted through my union in 2009. Yes, these issues take time. You must be tenacious, even when dealing with a fund like CalPERS, where both board and staff want to […]
Vanguard, Northern Trust, BlackRock and Fidelity scored the lowest among researched funds in supporting AFL-CIO endorsed proxy issues in 2012, according to their 2012 Key Votes Survey. Calvert, Amalgamated Bank, McMorgan and Bridgeway scored the highest. On proxy-voting issues at 32 companies the AFL-CIO considers representative of a “worker-owner view of value that emphasizes management accountability and good corporate governance,” Vanguard […]
Time to step into the way back machine to see what we were writing about 5, 10 and 15 years ago. Five years ago @ Corporate Governance, I was pleading for readers to send comments to the SEC on their proxy access proposals. 30,000 letters wasn’t enough, in my opinion. A shareholder proposal calling for a “say-on-pay” […]
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 […]
Four Fidelity funds recently backed an environmentalist proxy proposal for the first time on record, Ceres research found. Even though the votes cast by Fidelity funds at MGM Mirage Fidelity’s usual abstentions on shareholder environmental proposals, it is a start. Reuthers (Fidelity records first ‘green’ proxy votes, 10/9/10) goes on to note: Ceres found that like Fidelity, […]
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 […]
Rank Fund Family Score 1 (tie) Templeton 7 1 (tie) Oppenheimer 7 3 (tie) T. Rowe Price 7.67 3 (tie) AIM 7.67 5 (tie) Schwab 8 5 (tie) JP Morgan 8 7 Janus 9 8 American Century 10.67 9 Legg Mason 11 10 Federated 11.33 11 Franklin 11.67 12 Morgan Stanley 13 13 Van Kampen […]
On December 19, 2000 the AFL-CIO petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission to require mutual funds to disclose how they are voting their shares. Currently, mutual funds aren’t required to disclose the principles they use when voting in corporate elections. Nor do they have to tell investors how they voted. Unlike pension funds, there isn’t […]