The Shareholder Forum™

supporting investor access

for the informed use of capital to produce goods and services
 

The Shareholder Forum™

Purpose

The Shareholder Forum provides all decision-makers – from the ultimate owners of capital to the corporate managers who use their capital, and all of the professionals in between – with reliably effective access to the information and views participants consider relevant to their respective responsibilities for the common objective of using capital to produce goods and services.

Having pioneered what became the widespread practice of "corporate access" events over two decades ago, the Forum continues to refine its "Direct Access" practices to assure effective support of marketplace interests.

Access Policies

To provide the required investor access without regulatory constraints, the Forum developed policies and practices allowing it to function as an SEC-defined independent moderator. We also adopted well-established publishing standards to assure essential participant privacy and communication rights.

These carefully defined and thoroughly tested Forum policies are the foundation of our unique marketplace resource for clearly fair access to information and exchanges of views.

History

We have been doing this for more than two decades. The Forum programs were initiated in 1999 by the CFA Society New York (at the time known as the New York Society of Security Analysts) with lead investor and former corporate investment banker Gary Lutin as guest chairman to address the professional interests of the Society’s members.

Independently supported by Mr. Lutin since 2001, the Forum’s public programs – often in collaboration with the CFA Society as well as with other educational institutions such as the Columbia Schools of Business and Journalism, the Yale School of Management and The Conference Board – have achieved wide recognition for their effective definition of both company-specific and marketplace issues, followed by an orderly exchange of the information and views needed to resolve them.

The Forum's ability to convene all key decision-making constituencies and influence leaders has been applied to subjects ranging from corporate control contests to the establishment of consensus marketplace standards for fair disclosure, and has been relied upon by virtually every major U.S. fund manager and the many other investors who have participated in programs that addressed their interests.

Commitment

The Forum welcomes suggestions for its continuing support of fair access to the information needed by both shareholders and corporate managers.

Responding to the recent increases in investor engagement and activism, we have established a strong policy commitment to supporting corporate managers who wish to provide the leadership expected of them by assuring orderly reviews of issues. We will of course also continue to welcome the initiation of company-specific programs by shareholders concerned with the use of their capital to produce goods and services, and we naturally remain committed to addressing general marketplace interests in collaboration with educational institutions and publishers.

 

The Shareholder Forum: Policy Summary

Subscriber Provisions for Leading Participants

            Provisions for annual subscription are designed to accommodate participants with the experience to provide effective leadership in Shareholder Forum programs.  Prospective Subscribers are encouraged to suggest refinements of these provisions to facilitate more effective use of the Forum.

1.     Eligibility:  Forum participants may request Subscriber status after (a) having participated in at least two different programs and (b) having provided leadership in two or more Forum processes such as the definition of an issue or a workshop project.

2.   Annual allocations:  So that both the Subscriber and the Forum may benefit from advance commitments of resources, a Subscriber’s payment may be allocated during the following one year period to any Forum projects the Subscriber wishes to support, including any special projects established in association with the Forum’s University Affiliate.  If a Subscriber decides to support projects that exceed the initial payment for the year, an account may be established for the purpose according to conventional credit conditions.

3.     Opportunity to nominate panel members:  Subscribers may, if they wish, nominate members for appointment to the Forum’s standing Policy Advisory Panel* as well as for any panels established as part of specific Forum programs in which the Subscriber is a participant.

4.   Participation in marketplace review communications:  Each Subscriber will be invited to participate in any meetings, conference calls or other communications conducted by the Forum or by its University Affiliate for purposes of exchanging the views of Subscribers concerning their decision-making information requirements and Forum policies to satisfy those requirements.  Although no plans have been established, the Forum is considering the development of a yearly meeting for Subscribers to be conducted jointly with its University Affiliate to address a currently relevant public interest.

5.      Minimum annual commitment:  The Forum manager will establish minimum annual amounts for Subscriber payments, which may vary for corporate, investor and professional categories of Subscriber.  If the minimum amount is reduced, Subscribers that had paid more than the revised minimum will be offered the opportunity to either apply the excess amount to another year’s payment or to allocate any portion of the excess amount to Forum projects during the following year.  The current minimum amounts are as follows:

Corporate

$50,000

Investor

$50,000

Professional

$100,000

 

 

April 30, 2008 – GL

 

* Since 2009, Subscribers may nominate members for appointment to the Forum's Policy Review Board, which has assumed the functions of the Policy Advisory Panel.

 

 

 

Inquiries, requests to be included in email distribution lists, and suggestions of new Forum subjects may be addressed to inquiry@shareholderforum.com.

Publicly open programs of the Shareholder Forum are conducted for free participation of all shareholders of a subject company and any fiduciaries or professionals concerned with their decisions, according to the Forum’s stated "Conditions of Participation." In all cases, each participant is expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, and participation is considered private unless the party specifically authorizes identification.

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 had been offering for several years with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our support or endorsement.