Many were not surprised when the SEC, under Trump appointees, made it more difficult for retail shareholders to submit proposals. Read about our ongoing efforts to overturn that roadblock at Restore Shareholder Proposal Rights. However, most will be surprised that Broadridge Financial Solutions filed a no-action request that could end meaningful proxy voting at meetings, […]
Virtual Shareholder Meetings 2021. The Report of the 2020 Multi-Stakeholder Working Group on Practices for Virtual Shareholder Meetings came out about a month ago. I (James McRitchie) was happy to participate in the group, which did a good job of considering diverse views. Kudos to Amy Borrus, Darla Stuckey, and Doug Chia. My major contribution ensured […]
Chat Rooms are the key missing ingredient at virtual shareholder meetings. Virtual-only shareholder meetings increased dramatically (from 286 in 2019 to 2,200 so far in 2020) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Chat rooms before and after meetings would allow shareholders to interact informally with each other and with corporate representatives, as they do at in-person […]
How Shifting from In-Person to Virtual Shareholder Meetings Affects Shareholders’ Voice, Miriam Schwartz-Ziv‘s new paper recently posted on SSRN will be the subject of a virtual seminar held on Wednesday, Sept 2nd, from 11 AM-noon EDT. See the link below. (more…)
The first part of an in-depth look at Virtual-Only Shareholder Meetings, a new front in corporate-investor engagement. Scenario 1: In-Person Shareholder Meeting A shareholder proposal calling for the chairman’s resignation is coming up for vote at the physical annual meeting of Acme Inc. In the packed hall, a supporter of the proposal rises to her […]
Virtual-Only Meetings are quickly being adopted by entrenched boards who fear both adverse publicity and any attempt by shareholders, especially retail shareholders, to hold them accountable. Broadridge Financial Solutions ($BR) has a direct financial incentive to push companies toward virtual-only meetings. Although many funds and organizations oppose such meetings, no one in the opposition has a […]
Virtual meetings are quickly being adopted by entrenched boards who fear any attempt by shareholders, especially retail shareholders, to hold them accountable. Annual meetings are the only place shareholders are likely to meet with the managers and boards of the companies they invest in, as well as with employees of those companies and with other […]
Town Hall Shareholder Meetings It’s a presidential campaign year here in the U.S., and though the election is still over 6 months away, we’ve already been enlightened (or depressed) by a large number of candidate debates and town halls. Whatever your political views, the candidates seem able to instantly recall policy, financial or data details […]
The Norges Bank Investment Management (Norges), the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will publish its voting intentions prior to annual general stockholder meetings (AGMs) when it believes such action can help illustrate an important principle. (Norwegian oil fund to disclose voting intentions to illustrate ‘principle’) (more…)
Thanks to Jackie Cook and CookESG Research, we have added the October annual shareowner meetings to our AGM Dates page. This is a slow month for AGMs.