Climate activists found companies more receptive to steps like cutting emissions or buying clean power this year, a new tally of shareholder resolutions shows, a trend proponents said undercuts the case for proxy rule changes sought by business groups. Of the 145 climate-related proposals filed for this year’s springtime annual meeting season, 39 percent led…
Category: activism
Report: Shareholder Activism Jan-June 2019
Activist Insight on Shareholder Activism and Engagement in the first half of 2019: The first six months of 2019 have provided plenty of interesting activist activity in what seems like a longer proxy season than last year’s. Late-season fights at HomeStreet and EQT (this month’s campaign in focus) have kept us on our toes, as…
Activision Blizzard CEO’s $30M Pay Under Fire From Labor Union | Hollywood Reporter
The AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, Liz Shuler, is calling on the SEC to “take action on corporate executives who abuse stock buybacks for their own personal gain.”The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of unions, has taken aim at Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and his annual compensation in 2018 following a massive round of layoffs earlier this…
Investors with $34 trillion demand urgent climate change action – Reuters
Investors managing more than $34 trillion in assets, nearly half the world’s invested capital, are demanding urgent action from governments on climate change, piling pressure on leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies meeting this week.In an open letter to the “governments of the world” seen by Reuters, groups representing 477 investors stressed “the urgency…
Abortion Likely to Spark Shareholder Activism
The recent adoption of unprecedented restrictions on abortions in states including Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama is a legal and political controversy that is likely to become a corporate governance controversy as well. Judd Legum at Popular Information dug through the disclosure of corporate political contributions and revealed that these corporations supported politicians who sponsored…
Jesuits Get Majority Vote at Private Prison Company
The Jesuits West Province recently helped pass a shareholder resolution to hold GEO Group, one of the largest for-profit prison and detention center operators in the U.S., accountable for human rights and treatment of detainees. Working in partnership with investors and members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), the Jesuits requested that GEO…
Activists launch campaign to remove Zuckerberg from Facebook board | TheHill
Two activist groups on Monday launched a campaign to oust CEO Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook’s board of directors, arguing his “sweeping” control of the company presents a barrier to civil rights and privacy reform. Digital civil rights group Color of Change and Majority Action, a corporate accountability organization, told the Securities and Exchange Commission that they will be urging Facebook shareholders to…
Catholic Shareholder Activists Challenge Private Prison System | Sojourners
A shareholder proposal from a Catholic group has led to an agreement from the management and board of a corporation that operates private prisons. But the proponents are not sure how significant that agreement will be. These findings were detailed in “Proposal 4” on the proxy statement that GEO published ahead of the shareholders meeting….
ISS Endorses Shareholder Challenge to Dominion Energy
Majority Action is calling on Dominion Energy to appoint an independent board chair because “the board’s composition and the qualifications and outside connections of board members in key leadership positions call into question whether the board is well-positioned to provide independent oversight.” Proxy advisory firm ISS has recommended a vote in favor of the resolution….
Bayer shareholders rebuke CEO over Monsanto deal | Financial Times
Bayer’s supervisory board stood behind its chief executive and top management on Friday in spite of losing a shareholder confidence vote in the fallout from the German pharmaceutical group’s $63bn acquisition of Monsanto and the subsequent drop in its share price. About 55 per cent of shareholders voted against ratifying the actions of the management…
