Apr 13, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q3, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
XYZ Corporation welcomes you to its __th Annual Meeting of Stockholders. In fairness to all stockholders in attendance, and in order to provide stockholders an opportunity to be heard – and in the interest of conducting an orderly meeting, within a reasonable time...
Apr 13, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q3, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
With our comments on the most important best practices to adopt - and on bad and worst practices to avoid: Twenty minutes prior to the Meeting time there should be a welcoming message on the Meeting site - with a visually pleasing background, easy-to-read typefaces...
Mar 15, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q3, Annual Meetings, Featured, Issues
In light of the hundreds and hundreds of shareholder meetings your editors have attended - and especially in light of the many meeting critiques we have published, covering both the best - and the worst meetings - and the many blunders and bloopers we’ve seen - we...
Feb 14, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q4, Featured, Investor Relations, Issues, Shareholder Services
In the last few weeks of 2021 we had inquiries from three readers on this subject - one of our favorite ones - so we placed calls to a few colleagues who’ve had success here, and reviewed some of our own past articles for other ideas: Peggy Foran, who pioneered the...
Feb 14, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q4, Featured, Inspectors of Election, Issues, Virtual Meetings
In 2021 - thanks largely to sensible Covid-era precautions - U.S. companies overwhelmingly relied on “Virtual” attendance of Inspectors of Election - and auditor representatives too - at their shareholder meetings. Our sister-company, CT Hagberg LLC, logged fewer than...
Feb 14, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q4, Featured, Investor Relations, Issues, Shareholder Services
This year, The OPTIMIZER believes that the battle for the management-friendly retail investor vote will be harder to win than ever before - even while the retail vote will be a bigger decider than ever before. Here’s why: Over the past 18 months more than 22 million...
Feb 14, 2022 | 2021 Q4, Annual Meetings, Featured, Issues, Virtual Meetings
The number-one question we’re being asked as readers gear up for the 2022 Meeting Season, and as Covid cases began rising again, is “What are most companies planning to do this year?” So far, as our sister-company, that will provide Inspectors of Election at over 500...
Feb 13, 2022 | 2021, 2021 Q4, Featured, Proxy
An open letter to issuers, proxy solicitors and advisors and their legal counsel: Dear friends and colleagues; We are pleased and excited to announce that CT Hagberg LLC is now prepared to offer an outstanding roster of Independent Inspectors of Election who stand...
Aug 13, 2021 | 2021, 2021 Q2, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
Our 2021 Special Supplement, available only at OptimizerOnline.com, featured nearly a dozen interviews with prominent shareholder meeting observers - all of whom - including us - predicted record-breaking success for ESG proposals this season - although we’re not sure...
Aug 9, 2021 | 2021, 2021 Q2, Issues, Transfer Agents
In something of a bombshell announcement, Equiniti Group PLC - the UK-based owner of US Transfer Agent EQ - announced on May 27 that it has agreed to sell its entire portfolio of business to Earth Private Holdings, LTD - a newly-formed company owned by funds managed...
Aug 9, 2021 | 2021, 2021 Q2, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
To get a good idea of how to run a well-run, shareholder-friendly and useful VSM, start, we say, with our run-throughs of this year’s VSMs of last year’s winners - UnitedHealth Group and UPS… UNITEDHEALTH GROUP’s Board Secretary Dannette Smith once again guided us...
Jul 17, 2021 | 2021 Q2, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
Now that the U.S. economy is ready to open up for public meetings once again - and with plans for the 2022 Shareholder Meeting Season already needing to be considered - there has been a lot of speculation on the ultimate fate of Virtual Shareholder Meetings. Here are...
Apr 22, 2021 | 2021, 2021 Q1, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
Good news: The top-four VSM service providers - Broadridge, Computershare, EQ and Mediant - worked together as a sub-committee of the “End-to-End Vote Confirmation Committee” - and, as we’d predicted they would, they have come up with ways to make it easier and surer...
Apr 22, 2021 | 2021, 2021 Q1, Annual Meetings, Issues, Virtual Meetings
As the Covid pandemic continues to make in-person shareholder meetings a poor choice for most widely-held companies, most of last year’s VSM users - and a large number of companies that used “strong keep-away rules” last year instead - have been lining up extra early,...
