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 that they will be afforded the same rights and opportunities to participate as they would at an in-person meeting. [Emphasis ours.] Examples of effective disclosure include:

addressing the ability of shareholders to ask questions during the meeting, including time guidelines for shareholder questions, rules around what types of questions are allowed, and rules for how questions and comments will be recognized and disclosed to meeting participants; 

procedures, if any, for posting appropriate questions received during the meeting and the company’s answers, on the investor page of their website as soon as is practical after the meeting;

addressing technical and logistical issues related to accessing the virtual meeting platform; and 

procedures for accessing technical support to assist in the event of any difficulties accessing the virtual meeting. [Emphasis ours]

As we have been reporting, more and more institutional investors - who rarely if ever attended such meetings - are tuning in - and loudly criticizing companies they perceive as falling short of the guidelines above. And this season, you can bet that they will also be scanning your Proxy Statements for info on your VSM plans - and withholding votes if plans are weak and their demands are not met to their satisfaction.

And, as our headline notes, we expect to see a shortage of top-quality service providers relative to the demand for top-quality VSMs who will be able to offer, and smoothly integrate the kinds of technologies that are needed to provide the same rights and opportunities to participate as they would at an in-person meeting. To help set the stage, here are several sections that address the technological issues we bolded in the Glass Lewis guidelines…