Mike Tyrrell
James McRitchie
Mike Tyrrell is Editor of SRI-Connect – an online research marketplace for professional institutional investors, analysts & companies interested in sustainable development. He is keen to open up the site to corporate governance analysts & corporate governance research. Mike kindly gave permission to reproduce the interview on CorpGov.net. Continue Reading →
Broadridge Financial Solutions $BR is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 11/14/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of one fund when I checked on 11/8/2013. I voted with management 92% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Continue Reading →
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 do the right thing, since there are so many competing needs. I reproduce my testimony below in hopes that others will follow my lead at their pension and mutual funds. Continue Reading →
Several nice articles appeared recently in the FT on Norges, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund with $760bn in assets. Sorry, I didn’t save the titles but links to three are here, here and here. Well worth reading at the source.
With assets worth twice Norway’s annual non-oil economic output and after quadrupling in size in eight years, the fund looks to move from largely indexed to a more hands-on approach, such as sitting on Volvo’s director nominations committee. However, FT warns: Continue Reading →
Inside Investor Relations (IR) had an important article on July 30th, On the Way to the Investor Forum that raised the question: do companies really want to encourage their shareholders to chat about them in online forums? Wouldn’t it create a lot of work for investor relations officers (IROs) “who are responsible for monitoring these online groups, responding to any misinformation posted on them, dealing with legal and other consequences?” Continue Reading →
TK Kerstetter, Chairman, NYSE Governance Services – Corporate Board Member interviews Scott Cutler, EVP, of NYSE Euronext. Continue Reading →
Sharegate Inc., a new company that offers the investment community a modern and powerful financial social network, announced its launch recently, opening enrollment in the network to the general public.
Sharegate is an information exchange platform that connects individual and instititional investors, publicly traded companies and other special interest groups. This platform allows companies to present information, interact more directly with their shareholders and gives institutional and individual investors the opportunity to provide feedback and exchange information with these companies – and each other. According to the company’s founder, Argus Cunningham: Continue Reading →
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.
Continue Reading →
John Harrington, of Harrington Investments, will present his proposal on proxy access at the upcoming Bank of America (BAC) meeting on May 8th in Charlotte, North Carolina. It will be the first time language modified to provide a floor for retail nominators of at least 1/2% will be voted on.
That modification was made in an attempt to win over proxy advisors who were concerned the previous version could theoretically allow retail shareowners with as little as $100,000 in equity to nominate directors. Under the revised proposal, the minimum threshold for a nominating group under provision 1(a) at BAC is approximately $1.3B and under provision 1(b) is approximately $666M. Under either option, that is a substantial investment. Continue Reading →
The deadline for comments on this important NYSE rulemaking that must be approved by the SEC is today, March 15, 2013, so act now or forever regret not taking action.
See the rulemaking and comments already posted to SEC site. I’m concerned that provisions meant to facilitate voting on broker platforms may lead us right back into what is essentially broker voting. See discussion of Enhanced Broker’s Internet Platform beginning on page 37. I would much prefer a more open system as I described in my Harvard Law post, An Open Proposal for Client Directed Voting. See also proxy plumbing comments by Moxy Vote and proxy plumbing comments by VoterMedia.org. Continue Reading →
Turkey became the first country to require issuers to offer electronic proxy voting with the 1 October inauguration of a voting platform from MKK called e-GEM. The system will stream annual general meetings (AGMs) real time and let shareowners communicate with each other, vote before the meeting, and even change their vote as an annual meeting occurs. Other markets have e-voting but do not require it of all listed companies. Expect other markets to keep an eye on this development. (Corporate Governance Roundup: New Rules in Canada, Switzerland, Continue Reading →
Less than a third of companies today use social media to support their corporate strategy and risk management practices, according to new research conducted by Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, the Center for Leadership Development and Research at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and The Conference Board.
What Do Corporate Directors and Senior Managers Know about Social Media? details the results of a survey of more than 180 senior executives and corporate directors of North American public and private companies. The findings reveal a disconnect between companies’ understanding of social media and how they apply it to their business. The report appears in the latest Directors Notes published by The Conference Board. Continue Reading →
As co-founder Mark Schlegel announced Tuesday, MoxyVote.com will be closing down its proxy voting platform at the end of the month. See also Ross Kerber’s report for Reuters at Shareholder website closing, cites complex voting rules, 7/11/2012 and Mark Latham’s Sad News: @MoxyVote Is Closing #Corpgov. On the surface, it seems like a real tragedy. I’m sure Mark, Doug Gates, Brian Sloyer, Jeff Marshall, Alison Slezak and others on staff made many sacrifices to keep their dream alive, as did Larry Eiben and others at TFS Capital, which sponsored Moxy Vote. Continue Reading →
The revolution is being tweeted. Social media have enabled political uprisings in the Middle East, the global Occupy movement and even a swift blowback against banking fees in the United States. A logical Continue Reading →
Jason Zweig quoted this 1949 Benjamin Graham statement in his recent WSJ piece Will New Tools Help Small Shareholders Topple Giants?, 1/7/2012): Continue Reading →