Real-time proxy voting disclosure by big funds could drive competition for investments from individual investors and smaller institutional investors with few resources for proxy analysis. Such disclosures would also go a long way in solving problems raised by Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E. Strine, Lucian Bebchuk, and the Main Street Investors Coalition regarding potential […]
Large institutional investors, concerned about portfolio risks stemming from the effects of global warming, are calling for climate-competent boards and directors as part of their fiduciary responsibility to preserve and enhance the long-term value of their investment assets. Despite the anticipated rollback of climate related governmental policies such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power […]
Public dissent by directors should be encouraged, not penalized. If we don’t learn where directors stand on the issues and how they differ from each other, how do we know who to vote for? Two actions by CalPERS fifteen years apart are instructive. (more…)
There are good neighbors. Then there is Nabors Industries, Inc. Those were the opening sentences of another excellent editorial at Pensions & Investments (Test of Governance Wills, June 30). See their cartoon at right, which is very close to portraying the truth about Nabors. (P&I’s other outstanding recent editorial was Winning over proxy voters, May 12.) […]
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 […]
Below is an email I sent to Pensions & Investments (P&I) editorial chief Barry Burr praising their editorial enhancing fiduciary duty and opining on how it may speed the arrival of the time when retail investors will vote their values with the simple push of a button or two on their cell phones. I will follow […]
Guest Post by Adam M. Kanzer, managing director and general counsel of Domini Social Investments LLC, New York. His responsibilities include directing Domini’s shareholder advocacy department, where for more than ten years he has led numerous dialogues with corporations on a wide range of social and environmental issues. The following originally appeared under the same title in the […]
This is the first of a three part series. See also Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 2): Historical Background and Fiduciary Duty to Announce Votes (Part 3): Take Action. A recent editorial in Pensions & Investments (P&I), Winning over proxy voters, essentially argues that pensions have a fiduciary duty to announce their proxy votes in advance of the annual […]
I was delighted to see the influential trade publication, Pensions&Investments, endorse a petition to the SEC sent by the Council of Institutional Investors to amend its rules to allow a complete list of board candidates to be included in corporate proxies. (Better Way to Elect Directors, 2/3/2014: subscribe) (more…)
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 […]