Issuers: Big Investors Are Raising The Bar On Their Expectations For VSMs Big-time: We Predict A Potential Shortage Of Top-quality VSM Providers Vs. Expected Demand… Start Your Engines Now!
Glass Lewis’s late November release of its 2021 policy guidelines pretty much summed up what every major investor says they will be looking for in Shareholder Meetings in 2021: We look for robust disclosure in a company’s proxy statement which assures shareholders...
Inspectors Of Election: More Important Than Ever With VSMs
Since the very first VSM hit the airwaves the OPTIMIZER has been advising that the Inspector of Elections should be playing a key role - mainly because, with everything taking place in cyberspace, investors really need some added assurances that all of the voting is...
Information Agents: Everything You Need To Know… Except For The Really Important Stuff?
The OPTIMIZER editors - and other professional “Wall-Street-Watchers” too - are always avid watchers of the “tombstones” that describe the terms of newly proposed Mergers and Acquisitions - and especially those “Offers to Purchase for Cash” - in newspapers of record...
SEC Fines Transfer Agent VStock Transfer LLC For Numerous Violations; Sets Conditions For A Compliance Consultant To Audit, Report, Recommend And Followup On Remedial Actions
The SEC’s August 27th Release institutes a Cease and Desist Order on a virtual kitchen-sink of violations, including failure to transfer and turn securities around within required time frames, failure to report their failures to do so, failures to properly safeguard...
A Few Notes On The Second Proxy Contest Conducted As A Virtual-Only Event… And On The Use Of A “Universal Ballot”
The OPTIMIZER’s sister-company, CT Hagberg LLC, provided the Independent Inspector of Election in September at what we believe was the second Virtual-Only proxy contest to date, at a small bank in the Midwest. Three of the bank’s investors, with roughly 30% of the...
The Five Best VSMs To Review – And To Learn From… The Most Noteworthy Feature Of The Very Best VSMs? Women!
A month or so ago we suddenly realized that a feature that made the best VSMs so special had gone totally unremarked. So we emailed a little preview of the article we intended to write in this issue to our great friends at TheCorporateCounsel.net. “Here’s another...
Real-Time Voting At AGMs – The Peskiest – And The Stupidest Issue At VSMs – Plus… Our Own Suggested Workaround
As public companies have learned to their dismay and consternation this year, a “Virtual-Only” Meeting of Shareholders requires issuers - and the service suppliers they utilize - to give both registered and street-name holders the ability to cast their votes in...
Plan For A VSM – Or – For A “Stringently Limited In-Person Meeting” In 2021… Now
It’s October 2020, and the chances that public companies will be able to responsibly host in-person Shareholder Meetings any time before October 2021 are virtually ZERO - unless in-person attendance can be strictly rationed to include only the most essential...
A History of the Corporate Governance Movement – As Illustrated by OPTIMIZER Magazine Cover Art – from 1997-2008
We have been promising ourselves we’d do this lookback for several years now - partly to show off some of our favorite covers, by our amazing cover-artist Guy Dorian, who did our first full-color cover in 1999 and every one since - but mainly because the covers...
More Fascinating Materials for the Evelyn Y. Davis File
Following the article for our History File on the notorious EYD, a good friend and former colleague, Stan Siekierski of AST - who is, we believe, the longest-serving person in the Stock Transfer business ever - sent us a rare copy of Evelyn’s HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS...
