FOR STOCK HOLDERS Nell Minow, editor and co-founder of the Corporate Library, an independent, corporate governance research firm, offered a few tips on how to vote any proxy in two minutes or less. “You want to look at three things,” she said. Do the directors own company stock? Do they attend more than 75 percent of the meetings? And do they do business with the company? All this information, she says, is available on a chart on the proxy statement. To find whether directors have side deals with the company, she said to look in the “related party transactions box.”
It’s proxy season: Will you vote?
“If they don’t go to meetings, don’t vote for them,” she said. “If they don’t own stock, don’t vote for them.”
If there are any shareholder proposals, Ms. Minow recommends finding out how others are voting, including activists in causes you believe in or institutional shareholders like TIAA-CREF or Calpers, which have reputations for voting independently.
And if the proxy has too many shareholder proposals, “withhold your vote for the entire board,” Ms. Minow said. “Any board that is not engaging with its shareholders to try and negotiate some of its proposals needs to be reminded who they work for.”
