Investors might actually start kicking directors out

Posted Mar 2nd 2009 2:00PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Management

With a wave of shareholder meetings about to hit the United States, directors could be in for the first real test they've faced in a long time.

With shareholders looking at portfolio statements showing losses of 30%, 40%, 50% and more, directors are expected to face a tougher time retaining their seats. And a new trend of brokerages changing the way they vote customers' shares could make changes even more likely.

DealBook reports that "Historically, in the absence of instructions from the shareholders themselves, brokers almost always voted their shares in lockstep with the board's recommendations. More and more, however, brokers are divvying up the undirected votes proportionally, to reflect how their voting clients chose to cast their ballots."

Here's what this means for us as shareholders who have been betrayed by the directors who were supposed to make sure that executives were acting in our best interests, and paid in a way that aligned their interests with ours: You absolutely must fill out the proxy ballot you receive in the mail and, if you're not pleased with the ways things have been going, withhold your support for the company's board of directors. If your broker is divvying up unprotected shares in proportion to the votes of customers who did fill out their ballots, that could make your ballot count several times over.

So get out the vote!

Tags: Board of Directors, Corporate Governance, Directors

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-02-2009 @ 3:03PM

cevonfire said...

Then I strongly urge these directors to take a look at the hotest online business that is sweeping this and other nations. It is in the Travel, Telecomunications, Alternative Energy, Software and no product at all that would be the membership wich ones makes back over and over. http://www.ilmcentral.com is the gate and it is wide open. Stocks smocks lets get to NOW money..

3-02-2009 @ 3:10PM

thedude said...

It would be intersting to see IF this could work. All the proxy statements I have seen have had only two options for voting. You could either elect the slate as proposed or you could refrain from voting in which case your vote was counted as for the slate.

I have never seen the option of voting for somebody other than who the board chose.

What I would like to see is boards placing restrictions on executive pay not based on stock performance or some arbitrary amount the just pulled out of their @$$es.

Exectuive pay could be based on a % of the amount the company paid in taxes on thier claimed profits. If the company is fudging the books to not show a profit than the execs DO NOT GET PAID. If the company legitimately lost money THEN THE EXECS DO NOT GET PAID. Pretty simple if you ask me as Joe Sixpack doesn't get paid if he doesn't do the job (unless he's with the UAW or other union affiliation or a government employee)