Reaching Out To Directors
REACHING OUT TO DIRECTORS WITH SOME GOOD DIRECTOR EDUCATION PROGRAMS: Those gosh-darned university off-sites aimed at Directors seem to be proliferating like flies on a warm mincemeat pie – although lately, a bit of much needed consolidation seems to be afoot. The...Reactions To The Proxy Plumbing Comment Letters…
An Interview With Chuck Callan, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Broadridge Financial Solutions
Reaching Out To Investors… When Time Is Of The Essence? And There’s No Quick Solution On Your Shelf
The Optimizer Editor’s Annual Interview With Ellen Philip And Cal Donly Of Ellen Philip Associates
Reaching Out To Investors Via The Proxy Statement
The Optimizer Interviews Dannette Smith, Secretary To The Board Of Unitedhealth Group, Incorporated, The Winner Of Corporate Secretary Magazine’s 2010 Award For Best Proxy Statement
Reaching Out To Institutional Investors
Some Thoughts – And Lots Of Practical Tips – From Steven L. Brown, Director Of Corporate Governance, TIAA-CREF
A First-Hand Report From The Intel “Virtual Annual Meeting”… And A Heads Up On The Broadridge Virtual Meeting In November
Your editor had the honor to serve as the Inspector of Election at Intel’s 2009 annual meeting, the first “virtual annual meeting” ever.
Issuers Get A Stay Of Execution On Direct Proxy Access… But It’s Coming To Our Neighborhood Soon, We Guarantee:
The SEC – which was expected to vote on Direct Access to the corporate proxy machinery for the purpose of nominating director candidates on Nov. 8th, announced in early October that it would delay a vote on the final rules until early 2010 – to be sure that they would “get itright.”
Intel Prepares To Launch The First-Ever “Virtual Annual Meeting” – Featuring On-Line, Real-Time Voting
This is the beginning of a totally new approach to Annual Meetings, and one that will ultimately result in a totally new A-M paradigm, we think.
Should Board Directors Be Engaging Institutional Directors Directly, As The NACD Blue Ribbon Report Recommended? If So, What Are The Important Dos And Don’ts
If you missed the original webcast on this subject, sponsored by The Capital Markets Board, you can hear it on our website
In The Blooper Of The Year, Apple Gets Caught Counting Abstentions As “Votes No” On Say On Pay
It did not take a smart reporter very long to sniff out a problem with the way Apple reported its 2009 voting results – especially with regard to the “widely watched” Say on Pay proposal, which Apple reported had been defeated.
A Quick Primer On Tabulating And Reporting Voting Results
The first commandment when it comes to tabulating and reporting Meeting results is this: “Always prove every item to the Quorum”
Adjourning Your Annual Meeting: Not Having The Authority To Do It Can Be A Death Sentence
Another of our very favorite topics has jumped to the forefront this season: We’ve been warning year after year about the need to be sure that you have the proper authority to adjourn your annual or special meeting…
A Few “Practice Points” On Reporting Results
When announcing results at the meeting, the best practice is to stick tightly to the numbers.
Coping With The Loss Of The Broker Vote …And The Potential 50% Decline In The Individual Investor Vote, If You Fail To Use The N&A Model Wisely
Our Top “Practical Tips” On What To Do… To Head-Off A Potentially Career-Ending Snafu
Coping With The Loss Of The Broker Vote: Our Top-Ten “Strategic Tips” On What You Should Be Doing…. Now
Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you know of course that NYSE Rule 452, aka the “broker-may-vote rule”, aka the “ten-day-rule”
Early Returns From The Annual Meeting Front: No Surprise; It’s All About The Money In 2009 Look Out Below… For Falling Directors
For openers, how about 100+ proposals for shareholders to have a “say on pay”?
The 2009 Proxy Season Overview: Much Bad Sailing… But Batten Down The Hatches For Worse Weather In 2010
The season opened with a big loud bang, when Bank of America’s chairman Ken Lewis was stripped of his chairmanship by a binding vote to separate the Chairman and CEO roles.
A Few New Developments To Watch That Crossed Our Path This Season
A Delaware court ruled that a binding-bylaw proposal that would prohibit the company from seating any director who failed to achieve a majority vote in an uncontested election had to be included on the ballot at Trico Marine Corporation…
SEC Proposes New Rules For “Notices” To Foster “Access”: We Tell You… And Them… What You Really Need To Do…
At long last, recognizing that under the current N&A “regime” issuers have lost fully one-half of the votes of individual investors that they’d been getting before N&A – but still insisting there might be “other explanations” for this coincident phenomenon –...Do You Really Believe That Printed Annual Reports Are Dead Or Dying? Analyze This:
In a move that was mighty hard for followers of the current credit market mess to miss – but one that warrants additional notice, we think – Regions Financial Corp. took four full pages of the March 18th Wall Street Journal – the first page in impossible-to-ignore chartreuse, which added even more big money to the big media ‘buy’ – to reprint the first four pages of its Annual Report.
The Best And Worst Practices We Uncovered In Our Annual Review Of Annual Meetings And Meeting Materials
It’s that time again, for one of our longest-running and most-read columns…And this year, emulating those “bests” and avoiding those “worsts” seems more important than ever.
Wining, Dining And Shopping At The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, Which Is Not Just The Biggest, But The Best
Let’s take our own advice and cut straight to the chase: WHY is it the best annual meeting we’ve ever been to? Three big reasons; it’s a huge moneymaker for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders…it treats shareholders with the total respect they deserve…and…it’s a ton of fun.
Our Top-Ten Tips For Proofreading Your Annual Report And Proxy Materials… Plus Five New Tips For Today’s Web-Based Environment
Wow, we noticed… it’s been 10 years since we listed our top-ten proofreading tips… tips which several readers told us they had tacked to their walls.
With The 2008 Annual Meeting Season Barely Underway, It’s Already Shaping Up To Be The Biggest And Best Ever… For Activists That Is
The first thing to catch our eye; the number of “official proxy fights” already underway is 33% higher than last year ’s previously record-breaking rate
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.