Proxy voting and shareholder advocacy are a fundamental privilege and responsibility of stock ownership. Proxy voting offers shareholders the opportunity to bear witness to our values on a wide range of issues. The votes we cast can speak for the people and environments who have no voice in corporate circles and can promote good governance and responsible decision making.

The 2008-2009 proxy season was defined by investor reaction to the upheaval in the financial system and greater economy. Corporate practices ranging from executive compensation to the selection of corporate directors came under fire from shareholders. Investor anger translated into many dozens of new corporate governance resolutions meant to reform conventional practices and move the locus of corporate control to a more accountable place. Through its votes, MMA supported shareholder measures to instigate corporate governance reform.

While social resolutions did not garner the same amount of press attention, they still played an important role in shaping the proxy season. With more focus on annual meetings and corporate governance resolutions due to the financial crisis, social resolutions benefited from increased publicity. And in some cases, affirmative votes for social resolutions were buoyed by shareholder outrage at corporate management.

Overall, MMA voted on more than 6,000 corporate resolutions during 543 company meetings. MMA voted against corporate management’s recommendation 1,176 times, or 19% of the time, a relatively high percentage.

Download the complete report here:
‘08-’09 MMA Proxy Voting Report

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under MMA, Chris. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.