It's proxy season

I couldn't sleep last night, so I tried to bore myself to sleep by reading the annual reports and prospectuses (prospecti?) that seem to breed in my mailbox like rabbits and look over the proxy forms.

There are a lot of shareholder votes this year, people, all marked "The board of directors suggest you OPPOSE these measures." Many of them covered fully disclosing executive pay and some even wanted that pay voted on by shareholders.

This is the first time I can ever remember seeing this stuff on proxy forms. Usually they ask you to rubberstamp the board, approve the auditor, and pay the auditor and that is it.

Don't throw those proxies away this year, folks. Open them and vote yes to expand shareholder rights. It might be one of the most important things you do this year.

Where are the women?

Why no females?



I actually got a call back. Think it was Morgan Stanley - they needed me to resubmit my ballot via the phone because it was spoiled. I said sure - mark everything NO.

But it's more prominent this year. If Schumer's legislation passes, you'll see a lot more.

Usually, shareholder proposals on proxy statements are a bunch of crap anyway. There are all sorts of ways for the company to exclude them from the proxy. They rarely pass, but some are getting more attention.

But, the notion that an everyday individual investor has any power is pretty illusionary. First, if an individual investor doesn't like the company's policies, he or she can always just sell the stock. Second, their power is miniscule compared to the power of institutional investors, like banks and pension funds.

If you want your voice to be heart, you're better off being in a pension fund; you can then let the fund manager know how you think the fund should vote its shares.

and not a pension fund.

I just saw this as a dramatic change from the last 4 years of proxies.

There were always the ones that tried to sneak in a measure absolving the board of directors and top management of legal responsibility for company shenanigans, saw a few more of those, too.

Basically, I'm finding that if the board wants you to vote no, you'd better vote yes.