Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee made a groundbreaking speech about proxy voting to the attendees at the Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference. We publish it here in full with emphasis added. 2021 ICI Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference March 17, 2021 Good afternoon everyone, and thank you to the ICI for inviting…
Tag: mutual funds
Why Isn’t Your Mutual Fund Sticking Up for You?
Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr. and Harvard Kennedy School professor Antonio Weiss want mutual funds to consider the same long-term issues raised in the BRT stakeholder statement: Growing inequality and stagnant wages are forcing a much-needed debate about our corporate governance system. Are corporations producing returns only for stockholders? Or are they…
Mutual funds start to put their mouth where their money is | Reuters
Corporate America’s biggest shareholders have traditionally been content with sharing their views on a company’s strategy privately with management. But now some mutual funds are beginning to rethink their stance, amid pressure from investors for them to justify the fees they charge and a push to boost the performance of their holdings. Wellington Management Company…
Mutual Fund Transparency and Corporate Myopia
We often hear that corporate executives believe the pressure to issue quarterly figures and guidance leads to over-emphasis on short-term returns. A new paper by Vikas Agarwal (Georgia State University), Rahul Vashishtha (Duke University), and Mohan Venkatachalam (Duke University) provides some welcome focus on another source of short-term pressure, the reporting requirements imposed on mutual…
Center for Political Accountability: Rise in Mutual Fund Support for Shareholder Resolutions on Political Contributions
The Center for Political Accountability reports that mutual funds are increasing their support for shareholder resolutions calling for companies to disclose information about their political contributions. Support by mutual funds for the Center for Political Accountability’s corporate political disclosure resolution jumped significantly in 2017, to 48 percent from 43 percent in 2016, according to an…
Tim Smith on Conflicts and Opportunities in Mutual Fund Proxy Votes: Progress at Vanguard
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow interviewed Walden’s Tim Smith for the Huffington Post: I’ve written earlier pieces about the failure of the people who manage our money, especially our retirement savings to provide essential feedback to the companies whose stock they buy on behalf of more than 40 percent of working Americans, charging us as many as 16…
William Birdthistle on What’s Wrong with Mutual Funds and How to Fix It
If I could assign every politician running for office this year one book to read, it would be Professor William Birdthistle’s Empire of the Funds, the story the avalanche of money poured into mutual funds and the staggering inadequacy of the results as the baby boomers approach retirement. He calls it “the richest and riskiest…
Proxy Access Scorecard
The Nathan Cummings Foundation released today the Proxy Access Scorecard, an analysis of how mutual funds voted on the key issue of “proxy access” at the annual meetings of 84 corporations in 2015. Proxy access allows shareholders to use a company’s proxy statement to nominate candidates for election to its board of directors and is…
Mutual Funds: Enablers of Environmental Destruction
A recent study of US Mutual Fund families looked at the voting records, and found some very disturbing statistics…the three largest US Mutual Fund families, BlackRock, Fidelity and Vanguard all vote totally against climate change resolutions, at 0%. Cary Krosinsky: BlackRock, Fidelity and Vanguard: Exposed on Climate Change?
FINRA Sanctions Barclays Capital $13.75M for Unsuitable Mutual Fund Transactions, Related Supervisory Failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has ordered Barclays Capital, Inc. to pay more than $10 million in restitution, including interest, to affected customers for mutual fund-related suitability violations. These suitability violations relate to an array of mutual fund transactions including mutual fund switches. Additionally, the firm failed to provide applicable…
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