Saba Capital Management, a $1.7 billion hedge fund run by Boaz Weinstein, has sued BlackRock Inc., BLK 1.63% arguing the world’s largest asset manager has moved to block outsiders from gaining board seats at three of its funds and effecting change.In two lawsuits filed late Tuesday, Saba alleged that BlackRock’s actions run counter to the…
Tag: institutional investors
New UK Rules for Improving shareholder engagement and increasing transparency around stewardship | FCA
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has issued new rules for institutional investor fiduciaries that impose new requirements for engagement and disclosure: We have introduced new requirements to improve shareholder engagement and increase transparency around stewardship. The requirements come into effect on 10 June 2019. Asset managers and life insurers will need to disclose and make…
Index Funds May be Able to Vote 41% of S&P 500 Shares in the Future | Corporate & Securities Law Blog – JDSupra
Research by Lucian A. Bebchuk, Harvard Law School, and Scott Hirst, Boston University School of Law, indicates three key index fund advisors could cast 34% of votes in the next decade at S&P 500 companies, and about 41% of votes at S&P 500 companies in two decades. The key index fund managers are BlackRock, Vanguard,…
We Three Kings: Democratizing Voting at the Index Fund Giants | Oxford Law Faculty
Law professor Caleb Griffin writes in the Oxford Business Law Blog offers three options for addressing the problem he sees in concentration of proxy voting rights in just a small handful of players, primarily index funds: Passive funds will soon own the majority of all U.S. equity assets, and the way they vote their proxies…
Financial Advisor IQ – Broker-Dealers Rebuked for “Web of Toxic Incentives” in Congressional Hearing on Reg BI
The broker-dealer business model is broken and won’t be fixed by the SEC’s proposed Regulation Best Interest. That was the picture painted by all but one of five witnesses called to testify on the effectiveness of the proposed rule at a Congressional hearing Thursday.“The brokerage business model, with all of these and other perverse incentives,…
CII Spring Meeting 2019
The Council of Institutional Investors meets in Washington DC every spring, and as fascinating and timely as the presentations and panels are, what goes on behind the scenes is increasingly even more significant. VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow made presentations at two of these behind-the-scenes events, discussing buybacks with members of the CII board and…
PIC struggles to improve quality of corporate governance
South Africa’s PIC pension fund adjusts its corporate governance priorities (emphasis added): More than half of the companies in which the PIC has a substantial investment ignore its views on the need for independent auditors.Almost half of them also ignore its view on what is, or is not, an acceptable remuneration policy, and a substantial…
Brunel’s Stewardship Policy
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…
‘Quiet diplomacy’ the weapon of choice for passive funds | Financial Times
About a fifth of the freely traded shares of the US equity market are now owned by index-tracking funds and passive institutional mandates, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. This underlines the vital role played by the three largest managers in this space — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — in policing corporate standards.Larry Fink,…
SSGA’s Kumar warns companies on ESG progress | Corporate Secretary
Rakhi Kumar, global head of asset stewardship and ESG with State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), has warned that her firm’s patience is running out with portfolio companies that aren’t heeding the asset manger’s warnings on topics such as board diversity, refreshment and climate change.‘Given that we started talking about some of these issues in 2011,…
