In part 2 of a post on facilitating votes and activism by retail shareowners I continue to speculate on what could be done to improve the situation by recalling some of the better features of major efforts to date and possible improvements that would help conscientious shareowners. As Mark Latham reminded me after yesterday’s part 1, […]
Retail shareowners own about 1/3 of shares traded in the United States but vote only about 1/3 of the shares we own. As Nell Minow once quipped, “you can lead a shareholder to a lot of dense material, but you can’t make them read it.” (Video Friday: SEC Proxy Voting Roundtable) Our voting influence is much smaller […]
One way to use Sharegate is to announce your proxy votes. Far too many retail shareowners just trash their proxies instead of using them. A common misconception is that shareowners should take the Wall Street Walk and sell if they are displeased with any aspect of a company they own. That is like saying you should […]
The following are cryptic notes and a few photos taken at the 2013 Millstein Forum held June 24 & 25 at Columbia Law School. Be sure to check out the Forum’s photo gallery with links to other materials as well. For the panel on social media the moderator was John A. Seethoff, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Assistant Secretary, Microsoft Corporation. […]
I’ve started to use Sharegate.com to network with other shareowners around specific companies. The first company I’m working on through Sharegate is Reeds (REED). I think our company’s product line is strong but management and the board appear to be weak in distribution skills. After years of refining and growing their fine products, #REED still is not profitable. […]
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 […]
Facebook Inc ($FB) is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is coming up on 6/11/2013. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected no votes when I checked on 6/5/2013. I voted with management 9% of the time. View Proxy Statement. Senator Warren recently called on the exchanges to block companies with unequal voting structures from listing. Too bad that didn’t happen years […]
Some scribbles from the recent LA Trustees Round Up. I was more focused on reporting the first day on governance issues. I took far fewer notes on the second day but they may still be of some interest to CorpGov.net readers. There were several additional inspirational speakers. I mostly listened and didn’t (more…)
What is Sharegate? On its most basic level, www.sharegate.com is a social network for all players in the corporate structure, including shareholders, corporations and their investor relations representatives, institutional fund managers, and affiliates such as special interest groups, academic professionals, and (more…)
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 […]