A Quick Look At VSMs – A Shout-Out To Microsoft – And An Oddball Non-VSM Event To Avoid

Virtual Shareholder Meetings (VSMs) continue to gain traction - perhaps a tiny bit slower than in previous years - but this year, a seminal event we say; the successful adoption by Microsoft of a Virtual-Only Shareholder Meeting.

We were skeptical about their ability to do this without incurring the wrath of a few big investors…but Hey! They are Microsoft - which clearly wants to be on the cutting edge of “all things tech.” And Hey again…the stock has had a truly awesome year, thank you very much…And Hey again, the meeting ran pretty much like clockwork…with several kudos from “virtual attendees” and no blow-back from key constituents as far as we can tell.

Here’s an oddball story from an In-Person-Only Meeting we came across late in 2019 that would ordinarily cause an A-M planner to panic: A week before the meeting the Inspector of Election - a big-company meeting veteran and one of the longest-serving members of the CTH LLC Team - called to say…

”Guess what? I just reviewed the Rules of Conduct the company intends to hand out, and it says at the bottom, ‘Business Attire Will Be Required for Admittance.’ But there’s no mention of this in the proxy statement. What do you think here??” 

Hmmm…What would YOU advise, dear reader? We said, “Get on the horn to your contact at the company real quick…and tell her that ooops… rejecting someone at the door (of a very swanky private club, on a main street in a big city) could turn into page-one news…But sending a notice to shareholders seems like overkill…and likely to raise a ruckus on its own …And it’s mighty late in the game besides. So how about getting the club to make an ‘exception’ to its usual rule… then promising to post a corporate ‘host’ at the door, to very quietly escort anyone who might not pass the dress code into the meeting room…and out again when the meeting was over?  All good, thank goodness. Only one non-company shareholder showed up - and he was wearing “business casual” - without the normally required collared shirt and tie - but who passed muster just fine. Whew!