Shareholders target fund voting at BlackRock Inc., Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase, T. Rowe Price, and Northern Trust. (BlackRock, Vanguard Face Shareholder Rebuke Over Climate Votes, Bloomberg, 12/13/2019) With their rights under attack by the SEC, shareholders are beginning to realize how their investments are too often voted in corporate elections to concentrate power in self-serving corporate […]
Amazon 2019 annual meeting is May 22nd, so vote online by May 21st. To enhance long-term shareholder value, vote AGAINST Thomas Ryder, pay and auditor. Vote FOR all shareholder proposals EXCEPT #12 Report on Board Ideologies. (more…)
Walt Disney 2019 annual meeting is March 7, 2019. To enhance long-term shareholder value, vote AGAINST directors Barra, Lagomasino, Iger, as well as pay and the auditor. Vote FOR shareholder proposals to report on lobbying and cyber security. (more…)
The battle over Main Street Investors could determine the future of the American economy for decades to come. According to Cydney Posner of Cooley PubCo, on one side are those who believe investors must focus on maximizing financial return and management knows best. On the other side are those who want to broaden the focus […]
Shareholder Collaboration is a new ECGI working paper by Jill Fisch and Simone M. Sepe. Fisch is one of my favorite researchers, being insightful and less predictable than many of those in the primary academic hubs of corporate governance (Harvard, Stanford, and Delaware). In Shareholder Collaboration, the authors discuss the growing importance of a collaborative […]
Alphabet 2018 proxy recommendations. Alphabet is run by an Oligarchy. Will $GOOG overlords give up their position as a dictatorship? Are companies governed by dictatorships and oligarchies healthy for democratic governments? Shareholders can vote for change. Alphabet Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides online advertising services in the United States and internationally. Most shareholders do not vote […]
The Walt Disney Company (DIS), operates as an entertainment company worldwide. Most shareholders don’t vote because reading through 74 pages of the proxy AND many more pages of appendices is not worth the time for the small difference your vote will make. Below, I tell you how I am voting and why. If you have read […]
Real Impact Tracker Involves Everyday Investors in Creating Better Corporate Governance Everyday investors need to play a greater role in corporate governance. It’s dominated by institutions, where the least common denominator is profits Everyday investors should hold companies and funds accountable to their values Everyday investors can play a greater role in corporate governance The Real Impact […]
The Board at Berry Global Group ($BERY) is moving toward more democratic governance, thanks to the efforts of a retail shareholder who would be denied the right to file proposals if the Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and others had their way. The Berry Global Group has adopted proposals submitted by the same small retail […]
Anti-hypocrisy proposals could be the most important ones of the season. I purchased shares on Franklin Resources (BEN) so that I could file anti-hypocrisy proposals, of the same variety we get to vote on at the February 15, 2017, annual meeting. I had not owned my shares for a year as of the filing deadline last […]
Franklin Resources, Inc. (BEN) is a publicly owned asset management holding company, which includes Franklin Templeton Investments, and is one of the stocks in my portfolio. Their annual meeting is on February 17, 2016. ProxyDemocracy.org had collected the votes of two funds when I checked. I voted against three directors and for the proposal for a report on voting incongruities […]
The AFL-CIO Key Votes Survey is designed to help pension fund trustees fulfill their fiduciary duty to monitor the proxy voting performance of investment managers. Good corporate governance matters to shareholders and proxy voting is the most direct means for shareholders to exercise oversight in relation to the corporations they own. (Read the full report.) Proxy […]
Disclose Climate Lobbying: Resolutions Filed at Oil and Gas Companies Encouraged by the forward‐looking actions addressing climate change at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in December, investors have filed shareholder resolutions at 11 oil and gas companies asking them to disclose climate lobbying activities. The resolutions urge the companies to fully disclose their lobbying activities and […]