January 14, 2013 Forum Report: Reports of Shareholder Voting Data and Trends

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Fair Investor Access

This public program was initiated in collaboration with The Conference Board Task Force on Corporate/Investor Engagement and with Thomson Reuters support of communication technologies. The Forum is providing continuing reports of the issues that concern this program's participants, as summarized in the January 5, 2015 Forum Report of Conclusions.

Forum Report: Fair Investor Access

Reports of Shareholder Voting Data and Trends

Two reports of shareholder voting results have been published with data based on total voting power, providing important information about "absent" votes (abstentions, broker non-votes and votes not present), as distinguished from the commonly reported ratios based only on votes cast "for" and "against." This allows a more practical analysis of shareholder support for a company's management, relative to other companies or to groups of comparable companies.

Votes for Management Compensation

Both of these reports present analyses of trends in shareholder voting as well as proposal activity, and provide tables of specific details for each company in the stated coverage category:

January 8, 2013, The Conference Board (press release): "Proxy Voting Data Study Shows Companies Becoming More Inclined to Engage with Shareholders" [refers to the report by Matteo Tonello, Melissa Aguilar and Thomas Singer of The Conference Board in collaboration with FactSet: Proxy Voting Analytics (2008-2012), 193 pages, available from The Conference Board; covers Russell 3000 companies that held annual meetings during the first six months of the year]
December 2012, Georgeson: 2012 Annual Corporate Governance Review (60 pages, 2,830 KB, in PDF format) [covers S&P 1500 companies that held annual meetings during the first six months of the year]

The voting results provided by these reports are essential to any professionally rigorous analysis of investor support for either corporate policies or the management of particular companies. Whether you are an investor evaluating companies or identifying activist targets, a corporate manager responsible for understanding and responding to investor interests, or an expert offering advice to one of these decision-makers, this definitive measurement of corporate management will be critical to your competitive success.

GL – January 14, 2013

Gary Lutin

Chairman, The Shareholder Forum

575 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022

Tel: 212-605-0335

Email: gl@shareholderforum.com

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