Perfect Timing As The “Independent Transparency Subcommittee” Announces “The 30 Most Transparent Companies In The US!”

A truly Blue-Ribbon Panel of Experts, Chaired by Broc Romanek, hits the streets just as public companies begin to jumpstart their AGM pre-planning activities and, ideally, to anticipate, and proactively address the most important issues that will be on the minds of investors. We hope these excerpts, straight from Broc’s Report (with a few suggestions at the end from the OPTIMIZER editors) will inspire you to strive for less “opacity” and more transparency – and to create “winning documents” in 2025:

Best Overall Transparency: Intel
Showcasing true transparency, Intel earned top marks for its consistent and thorough disclosures, effectively communicating its mission, vision, and strategy with clear introductions and summaries across all documents. The company aligns board priorities with its strategy and uses graphics to clarify key metrics and processes. Dow and Mastercard ranked second and third.

Best Proxy Statement: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin excels in providing a clear and easy-to-navigate proxy statement that balances summaries, details, and visuals throughout. It effectively outlines and connects Board priorities, engagements, core competencies, and strategic skills. Freeport-McMoRan and Gilead Sciences received the next highest rankings.

Best ESG Report: Ecolab
Ecolab takes top honors and was awarded a precision score of 93.2%, which measures the completeness and prioritization of voluntary information shared. The company is recognized for its comprehensive goals overview, progress summary, and insights on how ESG aligns with their mission, vision, and purpose. Prologis and Dow placed second and third.

Most Improved Overall: Ford Motor Company
Ford’s dedication to addressing stakeholder needs is evident in its impressive 116-place leap, driven by significantly improved scores for their proxy and ESG reports. They also placed 14 among the top 20 most transparent companies, underscoring their commitment to transparency. CVS Health and Ecolab received the next highest rankings.

Best Form 10-K: ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips delivered a document that is easy to read and well designed, going beyond human capital management requirements to include global workforce statistics on gender and race, as well as employee turnover metrics. Moody’s Corporation and Bank of America placed second and third.

Best Investor Relations Website: Bank of America and Honeywell International
Marking the award’s first tie, Bank of America and Honeywell International stand out for IR websites that are easy to navigate, offering key information for readers only a few clicks away and dedicated landing pages for the annual meeting. Runner up: Cognizant Technology.

Best Code of Conduct: NextEra Energy
NextEra Energy puts readers first with intuitive navigation, featuring direct links to policies throughout the document. The introductory letter sets the tone by emphasizing the importance of ethics, compliance, integrity, following the code, yourankings.

Most Efficient Plain Language – Proxy Statement: Rockwell Automation
Rockwell Automation provided transparent communication in its proxy statement by using clear, concise language to build value and trust between stakeholders and the company. Johnson & Johnson and John Deere rank second and third.

HERE’S SOME ADDED ADVICE FROM THE OPTIMIZER:

Be sure to review the 2024 Proxy materials of your peer companies - against which your own company is certain to be compared. Start with any “transparency winners” of course but focus special attention on peer companies with “issues” – and on how well, or badly, they handled them in their materials. (We were amazed by how many “winners” actually HAD fairly serious issues – which rightly motivated them to work harder to identify them and to address them proactively - in a robust and far more ‘transparent’ manner.)

Try to identify non-peer-companies too that you consider to be “best in class” on an overall basis and review their materials as well - to see exactly WHY and HOW they are “best-in-class.”

Consider using editorial software-aids midway through the drafting process and before signing off on the final version to flag sentences that may be too long, and too complex, too “wordy” or too “legalistic” - and maybe to aim for a 12th grade reading level, or, perhaps, a bit lower.

Consider asking one or two “regular” staff members – non-lawyers - to read through next-to-final drafts to identify passages that are not clear to them as non “financial” or “legal” experts, as most of your drafters are and as many of your readers may not be.

Pay special attention to “the human touch” (or, heaven forbid, a lack thereof) which is so often lost in minutia and legal gobbledygook if it is there at all, but which is so much appreciated by readers. (Our own 2024 favorite on this score was JPMorgan Chase’s AR, which was entitled “Powering Growth With Curiosity and Heart”: A masterpiece of Plain English that made complex issues understandable, and relatable, made you want to read on, and convinced you that JPM Chase really does have a heart.)