Retail Investors Take the Mic: Engaging the Modern Shareholder

Retail Influence on the Rise The 2025 proxy season highlighted a paradox the OPTIMIZER has long noted: retail shareholders are more important than ever, yet remain seriously under-engaged when it comes to actually voting their proxies. At many large-cap companies,...

2025 Was The 90th Anniversary Of The Proxy Solicitation Business: A Quick Look At The “Highlights And Lowlights” And A Closer Look At Where It Stands Today

It’s been 90 years since the Nye family turned its brokerage business, Georgeson & Co., into a “proxy-chasing business” in 1935 – a time when individual investments in stocks had become very big business and voted proxies were very much in demand at Shareholder...

2025 MARKS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF “NOTICE AND ACCESS” – THE BEST “PUSH-MODEL” EVER!

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SAVED. BUT NOW, IT DESPERATELY NEEDS A FIX: A “PULL-MODEL” THAT WORKS – AND A RADICAL RE-ORDERING OF REQUIRED INFO Issuers of securities should be sounding big cheers for 25 years of Notice and Access – which has saved tens of billions of dollars...

An Unusual – And Disturbing Trend This Season – Failing To Name The Auditor Up-front – And, For Shame – On Your Proxy Card

Through mid-April we’ve noted at least three instances where the Audit Firm’s name was omitted in both the summary of items on the ballot in the Proxy Statement – and on the Proxy Card itself. This is a totally unacceptable thing to do in our opinion – and makes us...

Time To Take A Look At Your Bylaws, We Say… To Make Sure They Do Not Have Conflicting Voting Provisions

And Maybe To Consider Moving To A “Simple Majority Vote” To Pass All But The Most Economically Important Proposals A lot of speculation went on last year and this about the potential effect of the “broker may NOT vote rule”…which turned out to be mainly a non-issue...

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Optimizer To Activists And Noisemakers Re: Virtual Meetings: You Folks Are Really Missing The Boat Here!

Despite the many good things your editor, and other managers and consumers of Virtual Meetings have to say about them, they’ve been coming under heavy fire of late. Activist Tim Smith of Walden Asset Management has presented Intel, Broadridge Financial Solutions and...

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