21 Issuers Named And Shamed For Providing No Time To Vote
Governance guru Jim McRitchie’s post on his Corp.Gov.com website - with his review of a survey on 31 virtual annual meeting practices conducted by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility - was amplified considerably by a John Jenkins post on...
One Big Bad Day In August As Activist Investors Strike In Force
August 16th was a mighty bad day for three big companies - with big WSJ headlines announcing “Cardinal Health Under Pressure” as activist investor Elliott Management seeks “a handful of seats on the board,” in an effort to jumpstart the stock price…”Third Point Buys...
COVID-Era Snafus Create A Spate Of Mighty Big Lawsuits
But Wait! Shocking Deficiencies In Internal Controls Are Set To Fuel Even More, We Guarantee Over the past three months your editor-in-chief has had three assignments as an expert witness/expert consultant - all involving big stock market losses - and all with the...
New Podcast: Carl Hagberg on Lessons From the 2022 Proxy Season on TheCorporateCounsel.net
Carl Hagberg has chaired and run CT Hagberg LLC since 1992, which helps companies optimize their spending on individual investors and on investor relations programs in general. Carl also heads a team of 50 Independent Inspector of Elections - who, through June 2022,...
Mid-Year Notes On Big 2022 Meeting Trends …Straight From The Meeting Front
May used to be the “old April” for shareholder meetings - but June tied with May this year in our own count, with June meetings rising an astonishing 32.5% vs. 2021. Readers have been asking, “What’s going on here, and why? Ten years or so ago, the end of April marked...
The All-Important Master Ballot: What Is It? Why Do You Need To Sign It In Advance? – And What It Should Say – And Do
“Why do we need to have a Master Ballot for our Shareholder Meetings - and what exactly does it do?” This has been the most common question our Inspectors of Election have been hearing from clients by far - along with an intimately related and equally important one;...
How And When To Properly Open And Close The Polls
Over the last two years a mini-debate broke out sporadically over LinkedIn on how best to manage the opening and closing of the polls. Many activist investors felt that they should remain open until after the general Q&A period - and ideally, until the very end of...
A Few More Observations From The 2022 Meeting Battlefront – And Some “Problem Areas” To Note
The problem of “meeting congestion” on the busiest meeting dates continues to be a growing issue for issuers - and for their key suppliers: We predict that issuers will increasingly have to vie for favorable meeting dates and times, since at best, there are only eight...
Morrow Sodali Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary By “Building Together”
The OPTIMIZER interviews Adam Frederick, Global President, Bill Ultan, Managing Director – Corporate Governance and Greg Reppucci, Senior Director– Sustainability & Corporate Governance Through a combination of savvy strategic acquisitions and a continued focus on...
Will ‘Big Brother’ Really Be Looking At Your VSMs This Year?
We have been reporting on comments from ISS - and from several large investors as well - that they would be monitoring Virtual Shareholder Meetings to assure that shareholders will have a meaningful chance to ask questions - and to “engage in a dialogue with...
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.