More Meeting News to Ponder: Three Individual Investors Submitted 37% of the 2019 Proposals Submitted by the Top-Ten Poponents
It’s easy to understand why issuers get upset about “gadflies” - and would like to see the ownership thresholds increased for submissions of shareholder proposals - and to see the actual vote-getting totals thresholds increased substantially for re-submissions. As the...
The Best, Worst and Weirdest Things We’ve Seen in the 2019 Meeting Season to Date
LET’S PUT THE WORST BEHIND US FIRST: The return of those perfectly awful “floor votes” - led this season by the equally awful “Burn More Coal” lobby at meetings of at least four electric utility companies. We’ve warned annually about the foolishness of allowing...
Can We Do Away With Paper Dividend Checks? Plus, Our Top 5 Ways to Get Results.
A month or so ago, Liz Dunshee, one of the three wonderful bloggers on the incomparable thecorporatecounsel.net blog, e-mailed the following question to us, that she’d received from a subscriber: “Has anyone implemented plans to eliminate (or reduce) your stock...
A Call to Action: Bring Back the “Own Your Share of America” Campaign!
In mid-July, during an open Q&A session your editors attended at the SSA annual conference, this question from a member popped up on the screen: “With the number of public companies declining every year - and with the number of individual investors shrinking every...
Evelyn Y. Davis: Gadfly Extraordinaire and Self-Styled “Queen of the Corporate Jungle” Passes Away on November 30, 2018 at the Age of 88
One of the most complex, contentious, egotistical, infuriating and relentless people – and in many ways one of the saddest people on the corporate scene – due, perhaps, to her terrible experiences as a Holocaust survivor, which were rarely mentioned until late in her life…
People: 2019 Q1
George H. Beehler, a longtime printing salesman at Security Bank Note Company – who was lucky enough to retire when stock certificates were still a big business – passed away on March 26 at the age of 92. George was one of the longest-serving members of the old Corporate Transfer Agents Association – and he remained active until fairly recently in its new incarnation as the Shareholder Services Association as well. According to SSA guru Jimmy Smith,
Is Glass Lewis Adding Proxy Solicitation to its Expanding Private “Access” Services?
That’s the allegation from our friend and frequent noisemaker Gary Lutin, following the announcement of a new service, posted to the Harvard Governance Blog by Katherine Rabin, Glass, Lewis & Co., on Sunday, March 31, 2019…just in time for Lutin’s April Fool’s Day re-post and riposte.
Board Portals: Time for a Fresh Look, We Say
Two developments this quarter convinced us that companies should be taking a fresh look at the Board Portals they are using…and how, exactly, Directors are thinking about them…and using them…or not….
Big Transformations in the Employee Stock Ownership World… Including A Quick “Who’s Who” Analysis
We literally jerked to attention when we saw the news on page-one of the WSJ that Morgan Stanley is acquiring Solium Capital, Inc. – a Canadian firm “which manages the stock that employees receive as part of their pay”… for a whopping $900 million … “the largest takeover by any Wall Street firm since the [financial industry] crisis.”
A Few “Early Returns” From the Annual Meeting Front… And Maybe A Late-Breaking Shocker
Let’s start with the potential shocker: Just as we were locking up this issue came news from Vanguard, which is rolling out a new policy to vote in most cases against directors who hold two or more board seats in addition to their own company’s seat…starting now. We haven’t seen firm numbers yet on just how many director candidates will be affected – but we guess there will be a lot.
Podcast Alert: Annual Meeting Season 2026 — Expert Advice from Carl & Peder Hagberg
Carl and Peder Hagberg of The Shareholder Service OPTIMIZER join Meredith Ervine from TheCorporateCounsel.net to discuss proxy season risks, virtual meetings, and shareholder engagement for 2026.
Listen to hear their insights on this year’s annual meeting season.