We recommend Brunel’s excellent stewardship policy as a model for institutional investors everywhere. Stewardship is defined as the job of taking care of something, such as a company or property. As investors, we use the term assets. Brunel is committed to responsible stewardship and seeks to contribute to the ‘care’ of all the assets under…
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More Useless Sock Puppet Bluster from Fake Front Group Main Street Investor Coalition
Fake dark money front group Main Street Investment Coalition is really getting in a lather about the upcoming November 15 SEC Proxy Roundtable. The instantly discredited CEO-funded astroturf organization is struggling to find anyone who is not self-interested to try to make the case that the only source of truly independent research about corporate governance…
SpencerStuart Board Index 2018
The 2018 SpencerStuart Board Index has been released. Some of the highlights: S&P 500 boards appointed 428 new directors during the 2018 proxy year, the most since 2004 and an increase of 8% from 2017. » 57% of boards added at least one new director. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of the incoming class come from outside…
Even ACCF’s Fancy Law Firm Can’t Muster Any Real Evidence Against Proxy Advisors
CEO funded fake dark money front group American Council on Capital Formation hired a partner at a DC law and lobbying firm, Squire Patton Boggs (actual slogan: Local connections, global influence) to produce a report on proxy advisory firms. It concludes that proxy advisory firms sometimes make mistakes and do not give the companies they…
PWC on Corporate Boards: Cyber Threats, #Metoo, Diversity, and What Shareholders Want
PWC on Corporate Boards: Cyber Threats, #Metoo, Diversity, and What Shareholders Want PWC’s annual director survey is one of our most trusted resources on corporate governance from the perspective of the boardroom, and this year’s edition has some significant findings on issues like diversity, CEO pay, climate change, cybersecurity, and the gap between what board members…
2018 Report on Corporate Political Contributions from CPA
Every year we look forward to the latest update from the Center for Political Accountability about corporate political contributions. They are one of our favorite sources for information about the use of shareholder money for campaign contributions and lobbying. This year’s study title is blunt: Collision Course: The Risk Companies Face When Their Political Spending…
More Bogus Anti-Shareholder Propaganda to Fuel the Upcoming SEC Proxy Roundtable
The SEC’s roundtable on the proxy system is scheduled for next month, and so articles that look suspiciously like plants from the CEO-funded fake dark money front group Main Street Investors Coalition are popping up like a sock puppet chorus. In Forbes, Ike Brannon, a consultant affiliated with the Koch-funded Cato Institute and member of…
ISS and CII Join Forces for Protect the Shareholders
Institutional Shareholders Services (ISS) and the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) have launched a new educational website to respond to the CEO-funded fake dark money front groups, including the Main Street Investors Coalition, who are trying to suppress shareholder votes and limit access to independent research. Unlike ratings agencies and audit firms, which are mandatory…
Sarah Wilson on the Four Billion Reasons Not to Mess with Proxy Plumbing
Our deepest thanks to Sarah Wilson of Minerva Analytics for allowing us to post her thoughtful essay on the SEC’s proxy plumbing initiative, and for her support in our efforts to keep the Main Street Investors Coalition and their various other corporate-funded fake front groups from spreading disinformation about shareholders and proxy advisors. Here is…
Indexed Investments and “The Problem of Twelve”
John Coates has a thoughtful paper on the legal and economic challenges of “the problem of twelve,” the prospect of a majority of shares in public companies being managed by just twelve entities, in effect twelve people. [T]he rise of indexing presents a sharp, general, political challenge to corporate law. The prospect of twelve people…
