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Recent Articles
Turmoil – And A Scary Amount Of Cluelessness – At The Sec
Senior members of the SEC seem to be hell-bent on a mission to totally demolish the regulatory framework that has been evolving since the Great Depression: As we noted in our last issue, Chairman Paul Atkins is laboring under the incredibly ill-informed idea that the failure of the number of publicly-traded companies to grow is due to too much regulation. What sensible entrepreneur, we ask...
SEC Chair Drops Three Bombshells: Questions Precatory Proposals and Defers to State Laws Like Texas’s $1M Threshold — The End of Proxy Regulation as We Know It?
In his Keynote Address at the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance’s 25th Anniversary Gala on Oct. 9, 2025. SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins started off on a high note: “I am delighted to discuss one of my top priorities as Chairman, which is to make being a public company an attractive proposition for more firms… There are approximately 4,700 exchange-listed companies today, compared to...
Just In Time For Folks Who Think That Shareholder Votes Have No Value… “Mercury Vote” Also Begs To Differ
Thanks much to our colleagues and friends Pat Tracey and Andy Wilcox, who alerted us to the Mercury Vote website, advising that: "We are an auction marketplace that empowers shareholders to generate extra revenue by selling their unused proxy voting rights,enabling investors to obtain these aggregated proxy votes to reduce costs.” There’s not much info on the website yet, other than the callout...
Exxon Mobil Launches Program Allowing Retail Shareholders To Issue “Standing Voting Instructions.” A Potential Game-Changer… Or A Major Flop Ahead?
It seems that every law firm in the country has been summarizing Exxon Mobil’s attempted vote-getting effort, speculating that others will follow suit and offering pointers on what to watch for and what to do. We, however, as 60+ year observers of actual U.S. proxy voting behaviors, are expecting this to become an expensive and totally embarrassing flop… unless a robust Investor Education...
Ellen Philip and Associates Turn Their Widely Attended Holiday Party Into “A Party with A Purpose”
We were deeply saddened to learn that Cal Donly - the life-and-business partner of Ellen Philip, who survives him - passed away on October 18th. Everyone who was anyone in the Shareholder Servicing world over the past 60 years knows Cal and Ellen - two of the finest, most reliable and most generous people we’ve ever met. Both of them were 60+ year members of the Corporate Transfer Agents...
DEI And Anti-DEI Proposals In 2025 – And The Outlook For 2026
An April 14 report from the Conference Board (where most Russell 3000 companies had already filed 2025 proxy materials) showed a precipitous drop in Pro-DEI proposals – no big surprise in today’s environment – and a foretaste of what’s to come in 2026 we feel certain. “Shareholder proposals promoting or advancing DEI initiatives peaked in 2021. From 2021 to 2024, the number of pro-DEI proposals...
A Quick Overview Of A Greatly Improved 2025 AGM Environment – And The Outlook For 2026
An ISS analysis of shareholder meetings held from January 1 through June 30 shows a big drop in Shareholder Proposal Submissions for the 2025 Annual Meeting Season: 782 submissions at Russell 3000 companies – down sharply from 906 in ’24 – with nearly a quarter of them withdrawn – vs. only 15% in ’24 – “likely a result of the SEC’s Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14M (CF) issued in February, which...
Start Preparing For Your 2026 AGM Now!
Yes, we know it’s mid-summer, but now really is the time to start thinking about your 2025 Annual Meeting, while you have a bit of idle time to reflect on what worked well – and not so well in 2025 – both at your company and at other companies like your own – and to prepare early for 2026. For starters, take a look at our reports on VSMs – on the best – and on those that had glitches, glaring...
Annual Meeting Season is Here – Are You Ready?
Get the full transcript from the April 2, 2025, webinar hosted by TheCorporateCounsel.net: “Conduct of the Annual Meeting” As corporate governance continues to evolve in response to shifting regulatory landscapes and rising shareholder expectations, now is the time to ensure your annual meeting strategy is up to date. This timely session brought together leading experts to discuss actionable...
Institutional Investors Promise To Monitor And Act On VSMs That Short-Circuit Investor Participation
As the big Spring Shareholder Meeting Season begins we want to renew our warnings that “Big Brother is watching” – and rightly so, we say - to be sure that all shareholders are given a fair chance - not just to listen passively, but to be HEARD at VSMs – AND that they are given sufficient time to CAST THEIR VOTES after the “discussion period” is over. Please be sure to visit our website,...
Start Preparing For Your 2026 AGM Now!
Yes, we know it’s mid-summer, but now really is the time to start thinking about your 2025 Annual Meeting, while you have a bit of idle time to reflect on what worked well – and not so well in 2025 – both at your company and at other companies like your own – and to prepare early for 2026. For starters, take a look at our reports on VSMs – on the best – and on those that had glitches, glaring...
Institutional Investors Promise To Monitor And Act On VSMs That Short-Circuit Investor Participation
As the big Spring Shareholder Meeting Season begins we want to renew our warnings that “Big Brother is watching” – and rightly so, we say - to be sure that all shareholders are given a fair chance - not just to listen passively, but to be HEARD at VSMs – AND that they are given sufficient time to CAST THEIR VOTES after the “discussion period” is over. Please be sure to visit our website,...
Awful Advice On VSMs From A Big T-A: Take It At Your Peril
In the run-up to the annual podcast covering “The Conduct of the Annual Meeting,” a prospective attendee wrote in to ask if they could pre-record their entire Meeting, and to answer only pre-recorded questions, saying that their transfer agent (one of the biggest ones, that we will allow to remain anonymous) recommended this to them as part of a “major trend.” Ouch! We responded that Meetings...
A Quick Review Of The Apple VSM (We Were Pretty Happy Until We Realized We’d Been Snookered)
In keeping with our plans to tune in and review more VSMs this year we were happy to attend Apple’s nice (and early, for West-Coasters) Feb. 25th Meeting, held at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time; 11:00 Eastern. Apple is one of our top-two investments – with an amazing 54,526.7% return, and we LOVE them – but with a sorta’ bad record for shareholder meetings, having mis-reported the voting results TWICE...
Take Ownership of Your Governance: Don’t Wait for Activists to Start the Conversation
Navigating M&A and Shareholder Activism: Key Insights for 2025 Co-Editor Peder Hagberg interviews Bob Marese, President of MacKenzie Partners, on current trends in mergers and acquisitions, shareholder engagement, activism, and effective board governance heading into the 2025 Proxy Season. Q: Bob, can you provide an overview of what’s happening at MacKenzie Partners and how recent changes in...
Leveling the Playing Field of Corporate and Shareholder Transparency
A Call to Action from Joseph Caruso, CEO, Alliance Advisors Joe Caruso: Over the past few years, there’s been a growing call for greater corporate transparency, especially from government agencies, institutional investors, and proxy advisory firms. But are we really creating a level playing field when it comes to shareholder transparency? OPTIMIZER: It seems that we’re still far from that....
Shareholder Services: History
Carl Hagberg
The Shareholder Service OPTIMIZER, first published in 1994, is “dedicated to helping public companies – and their suppliers – to deliver better and more cost-effective services to shareholders”.
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