Yikes – They’re Back, As Warned: Last-Minute Proxy Fights… And Supposedly “Irrevocable” Proxies
And Those Dangerous “Floor Votes” Too… Very Badly Advised!
Proxy Statements Transitioning From Compliance To Communications-Focused Documents
By Ron Schneider, Director, Corporate Governance Services, RR Donnelley
Another Proxy Voting Scam – And The Scamsters – Revealed
SCAMSTERS MASQUERADING AS INVESTORS MANUFACTURE PROXY VOTES IN A FAILED AT EMPT TO SEAL A DEAL…THE BIG SURPRISE? NOTHING REALLY NEW HERE: WHO’S WATCHING THE PROXY BIZ ANYWAY?
Our Top Takeaways From The Spring 2015 Annual Meeting Season
The biggest takeaway, by far, is how much smooth sailing those proxy access proposals with 3% ownership and 3-year holding periods encountered… pretty much as we predicted.
The Best, The Worst… And The Weirdest Annual Meeting Developments We Saw This Spring
Let’s lead off on a high note, with some of the best meetings your editor attended – and where there were some nice innovations worth passing along:
Our Promised Checklist Of The Best Practices To Gear Up Early For Your Annual Meeting of Shareholders
For the majority of our readers, their annual meetings are six months or more away as we write this…
Holy Land Priciples Seem Cool But Generate Lots Of Heat At Shareholder Meetings: Coming Soon To 500+ Companies
Nine shareholder resolutions will come to a vote in 2016 on The Holy Land Principles – “an 8-point corporate code of conduct for American companies doing business in Israel-Palestine” according to a press release signed by the fiery Irish-American priest and preacher, Father Sean Mc Manus.
Some Bests (Microsoft, Chevron And Hasbro) And Worsts (“The VWAPS Of G-E”) On The 2015 Shareholder Engagement And Meeting Materials Scenes
Regular readers are well aware, we hope, of our frustration with the overall presentations of shareholder meeting and voting materials over the web.
Activists And Other “Financial Engineers” Drive M&A And Restructuring Acivities To Alltime Highs As We Get Set For The 2016 Annual Meeting Season
An all-time record number of “deals” were announced in 2015 – falling just shy of the $5 trillion mark, at $4.7 trillion.
Transfer Agent Liabilities: Under-Estimate Them At Your Peril
Our Top Tips On Protecting Your Company From T-A-Related Liabilities: Doing It Yourself? Bad Advice!
Transfer Agent Market Share Updates Show Major Shrinkage In The Registered Holder Universe
Much More Shrinkage Still To Come, We Say
Direct Stock Purchase And Dividend Reinvestment Plans
We Guarantee That Your Company Will Benefit From A Fresh And Careful Re-Look… And Maybe A Major Makeover… And If You Don’t Have One, You Should Take A Look At That Too
BofA Aces The Referendum On A Combined Chairman/CEO
A Few Important Take-Aways For Issuers – And A Few “Shades Of The Bad Old Days” Worth Noting
Early Returns From The 2015 Meeting Season: Activists Rev Their Motors At Full Speed
Many Seminal Developments To Watch… And Our Comments On Bad Advice… And Good
New Action Expected In The Drive For “Universal Ballots”: An SEC “Tilt” To Favor Activism? We Say It Does Not
“SEC Chief Tilts Again to Activists” the WSJ headline screamed, on page-1 of the June 26 Money & Investing section, reporting on Chairman Mary Jo Wight’s remarks at the Society of Corporate Secretaries conference where she endorsed the universal ballot idea, and urged companies to adopt one voluntarily in a proxy fight…”
A Quick P.S. On The Much-Watched Dust-Up With Activist Investors at DuPont
Another Of The Optimizer’s Governance Predictions Comes Through… In A Flash
Some Major Suppliers… A Major Bank… And An Important Regulator Raise The Ante Big-Time On “Cybersecurity At One’s Suppliers”
But A Surprising Number Of Companies Dig-In Their Heels About Reviewing And Expanding Their Internal Control Environment… Do Not Be One Of Them… Or Use One Of Them, We Warn
Scripophily: Back With A Vengeance… Do You Know Where Your Old Stock Certificates Really Are? Should You Care?
It’s been about ten years now since we last wrote about scripophily – the semi-secret, sometimes all-consuming and, all too often, totally illicit love for old stock certificates.
Our Best New Ideas To Attract A Cadre Of Solid, Long-Term Investors That Will Create Big Value For Your Company
In our last issue we published some pretty grim statistics about the huge number of individual investors that have given up on owning common stock. We are at the lowest levels since the Depression. And as we write this, the U.S. stock markets are following China’s...Major Shockers Rock The Governance World
Big After-Shocks To Come, And A Major “Raising Of The Bars” Across The Board, We Predict… So Get Ready We love to crow about our long record of predicting “the next big thing in the corporate governance world” - but you sure don’t need a crystal ball this fall to know...Stock Buybacks Come Under New Fire – From Politicos and CEOs Alike
Long-term readers know that badly designed and executed stock-buyback programs - and especially those programs where buyback money goes straight to “money heaven” instead of into the pockets of shareholders - are one of our top bugaboos. Lately - huzzah! - a lot of...Can We Ever Shrink The Evergrowing Rate Of Income Inequality? Should We Care?
A Few Strategies To “Share The Wealth” - Albeit Modestly - With “Regular People” The growing gap between the incomes and total wealth of the “one-percenters” and the rest of us has been getting more and more attention of late, as well it should. And this is before...Women On Boards: Still Lagging, Despite Compelling Evidence That They Raise Shareholder Returns…What’S Up Here?
THE “2020” CAMPAIGN IN THE U.S. – TO HAVE 20% WOMAN BOARD MEMBERS BY 2020 – SEEMS LESS LIKE 20:20 VISION AND MORE LIKE A BAD CASE OF MYOPIA A just-out study from index provider MSCI shows that companies with “strong female leadership”, which they define as...Out Of Our In-Box: Whistle Blowers Spark Lawsuits Against The Four Big ADR Depositary Banks
And Promise A Film On “The Biggest Financial Industry Cover-Up In History”
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.