The Shareholder ForumTM

Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

Forum Home Page [see Broadridge note below]

"E-Meetings" Home Page

"E-Meetings" Program Reference

 

E-Meetings Review

a project of

The Shareholder Forum

in support of its program for

Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

 

Participant Questions

News Digest

Meeting Observations

 

April 23, 2010

 

Dear Forum Participant,

 

Thanks for your questions and comments. Your ideas and observations contribute greatly to our thinking and help us expand the discussion in new directions.

 

Participant Questions

 

Responding to question about access to meetings:

Best Buy Co., Inc. has responded to one of last week’s questions by telling us they will be making arrangements that allow Forum participants to listen in on their meeting, scheduled for June 24. We assume others will do the same, and will keep you posted.

 

Views of objectives:

We thank Broc Romanek, editor of TheCorporateCounsel.net, for a stimulating exchange that encouraged us to take a comprehensive view of the communication processes taking place before, during and after a shareholder meeting as one continuum that includes both electronic and traditional methods. For example, a company's way of addressing shareholder questions at its meeting may include submissions of questions by internet and postal letters before the meeting, and by internet, phone and in-person during the meeting. It may then deliver some in-person management responses during the meeting and follow up after the meeting by posting additional answers on the company’s web site.

 

News Digest

 

These may be early days for electronic participation, but people who know their marketing are alerting us to its opportunities. In an article we distributed this morning about The Proctor & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG; $185 billion market cap), now posted on the Forum web site with links to relevant documents, we saw that the company’s board approved a change to their governance provisions that will allow P&G to conduct a shareholders meeting “held solely by means of communications equipment.” A P&G spokeswoman reportedly said the company had no specific plans to apply the provision, but that the board wanted the company’s provisions to be “up to date.”

 

Meeting Observations

 

At this point we know enough about the meetings planned by American Water Works, Best Buy, and Intel Corporation to justify observing them as examples for the Forum. We are of course continuing to explore the plans of several other companies to see which ones may provide useful insights into what can be done, and we’ll welcome your continuing suggestions about what companies and issues to consider.

 

Avital Louria Hahn

E-Meetings Review, a Shareholder Forum project

516-782-2715

avital.hahn@shareholderforum.com

 

 

© 2010 The Shareholder Forum

 

 

 

This Forum program is open, free of charge, to anyone concerned with investor interests in the development of standards for conducting shareholder meetings with electronic participation. As stated in the posted Conditions of Participation, the Forum's purpose is to provide decision-makers with access to information and a free exchange of views on the issues presented in the program's Forum Summary. Each participant is expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, subject to the privacy rights of other participants.  It is a Forum rule that participants will not be identified or quoted without their explicit permission.

The organization of this Forum program was encouraged by Walden Asset Management, and is proceeding with the invited leadership support of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. and Intel Corporation to address issues relevant to broad public interests in marketplace practices, rather than investor decisions relating to only a single company. The Forum may therefore invite program support of several companies that can provide both expertise and examples of leadership relating to the issues being addressed.

Inquiries about this Forum program and requests to be included in its distribution list may be addressed to e-mtg@shareholderforum.com.

The information provided to Forum participants is intended for their private reference, and permission has not been granted for the republishing of any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web site is the responsibility of Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.

Shareholder Forum™ is a trademark owned by The Shareholder Forum, Inc., for the programs conducted since 1999 to support investor access to decision-making information. It should be noted that we have no responsibility for the services that Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., introduced for review in the Forum's 2010 "E-Meetings" program and has since been offering with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our support or endorsement.