Fortune has a terrific piece by Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian on the failure (in the purely financial sense) of the anti-woke, anti-ESG companies. It is well worth a careful read of the entire piece, but here are some highlights: Grandstanding political ideologues are using opportunistic attacks on iconic U.S. enterprises to showcase their…
Author: ValueEdge blog staff
Shareholders Vote NO on Netflix CEO Pay
The writers’ strike may have had some impact, but it is likely that the majority NO vote on the Netflix executive pay plan was strongly influenced by the ISS recommendation to vote against and the company’s position at number 25 on As You Sow’s most overpaid list. The New York Times reports: Netflix shareholders voted…
Douglas Chia on ESG and Anti-ESG
Douglas Chia is one of the most respected authorities on corporate governance and we are honored to be able to share his recent speech, the most insightful discussion we have seen of the challenges to ESG.. Anti-ESG: A War On Two Fronts By Douglas K. Chia, President, Soundboard Governance LLC; Senior Fellow, Rutgers Center for…
WSJ is Shocked, Shocked! To Find Capitalism Happening
Entities that love to rhapsodize about the purity of the free market are often aghast when markets deliver a response they don’t like. Here we have the Wall Street Journal displaying its bias with the slanted language in the headline for this story: “Shareholder Activists Drag Companies Into U.S. Culture Wars.” Let us point out…
This is What Regulatory Risk Means
ISS has a new report on likely regulations that will affect risk assessment for investors. Regulators are increasing their scrutiny of corporate supply chains, pressing companies to take more responsibility for modern slavery, human rights abuses and environmental harm caused along their entire value chain. While some national rules impose hefty fines for non-compliance, others…
Another Useless Letter from State GOP Politicians
Following on the wildly distorted, inaccurate attack on ESG in a letter from Republican Attorneys General to Larry Fink at Blackrock (our suggested response is here, Fink’s actual response is here, and the rebuttal from the Democratic Attorneys General is here), we now have a letter from Republican state treasurers that is just as slanted…
We Give an F to The WSJ’s Grades for “Woke” Proxy Votes
The Wall Street Journal’s hysterical pearl-clutching about ESG is getting to the point of derangement. The one thing we thought we could count on them for was, well, counting, but real math would not make their point, so they’re touting a disgracefully skewed report. The bias is evident in the Journal’s language. “Strangling” fossil fuels?…
Shake Shack Agrees to Add Dissident-Sponsored Board Members
Shake Shack Inc. has entered a cooperation agreement with Engaged Capital, LLC to appoint Jeffrey D. Lawrence to its Board as an independent director, effective immediately. The Company will also work with Engaged Capital to identify an additional mutually agreed upon independent director to appoint to the Shake Shack Board with restaurant operations experience. The…
Directors Elected Via Universal Proxy
Last week we saw only the second voting outcome in a proxy contest under the new universal proxy card (UPC) rule. The activist investor prevailed decisively, in an interesting and unusual election. UPC may have helped encourage the activist to pursue it, but likely did not affect the outcome. An individual investor, Daniel Mangless, owns 2.3% of…
Wells Fargo, Serial Offender, Pays a Billion Dollar Fine
Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the bank of overstating how much progress it had made in fixing the unlawful practices that regulators said had hurt millions of customers. The agreement, detailed in court filings on Monday, is the latest in a succession of settlements and penalties…
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