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.

 

TheCorporateCounsel.net, September 10, 2009 article

 

 

 

TheCorporateCounsel.net Blog

The Practical Corporate & Securities Law Blog

 Broc Romanek and Dave Lynn are Editors of TheCorporateCounsel.net

 

September 10, 2009

The Return of Virtual-Only Shareholder Meetings? Herman Miller's Third Year in a Row

Well, it's been done before. Annual meetings held solely online. Inforte was first company to conduct their annual meeting solely online in April '01. Ciber did it in '02 and ICU Medical in '04. Siebel Systems had plans to do it in '03 - but changed course in the face of criticism.

Now we have a relatively small company - Herman Miller - that filed this proxy statement last week, indicating that it would be the latest company to hold a virtual meeting. And you want to know the biggest surprise of it all - this will be the third year in a row that the company will do so! Slipped under the radar. Anyone aware of any other companies out there doing this?

Although I drafted them about eight years ago, these FAQs on conducting electronically-only meetings remains the best thing out there on the topic (because its about the only thing written on the topic) - it's posted in our "Annual Shareholder Meetings" Practice Area.

Here is one of the FAQs worth considering:

What risks does a company face if it holds an electronic-only stockholders' meeting with no physical counterpart?

Increased shareholder activism is quite possible - as well as potential negative media coverage based on the scorn of disappointed stockholders that like to have the opportunity to attend physical meetings.

Some investors have expressed concerns that electronic-only meetings would deprive them of the opportunity to meet with company representatives face to face. They believe that these physical meetings allow investors to better express their positions - and that management and the board listen more closely when communications are made in person.

After Delaware changed its laws in 2000, the Council of Institutional Investors wrote letters to the CEOs of all companies incorporated in Delaware urging them not to conduct electronic-only meetings. Unions also are concerned about the changes in the Delaware law.

Particularly for matters that are contested at a stockholders' meeting, electronic-only meetings pose the risk that a company can be surprised by large stockholders who vote at the meeting or change their vote - thereby making the outcome of meetings less predictable.

A risk for management is that an electronic-only meeting likely would result in greater attendance with more questions asked compared to a physical meeting - since attending an electronic meeting is fairly easy. This is a risk for those companies who like their meetings small and intimate (i.e. the fewer questions, the better) - but an advantage for those who don't mind the attention.
 

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- Broc Romanek

Posted by broc at 7:15 AM
 

 

 

 

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.