This 4-minute video leads off with a tough question to Vanguard’s CEO, based on ProxyDemocracy data.
Here’s Vanguard’s voting profile on ProxyDemocracy. It shows that Vanguard funds have voted against the recommendation of management on 13.7% of the proposals they have faced. 87% of the fund families in the ProxyDemocracy database voted against management more often than that.
Thanks to comments from Jim McRitchie and John Richardson on the previous draft, I’ve revised it below to make it more attractive for advisors:
This shareowner proposal is an enhancement of my previous Proxy Advisor proposals, based on what we have learned from implementing this idea for the past four years at the University of British Columbia. The main idea is in section 3 of “Proxy Voting Brand Competition”, and the UBC implementations are described in “Global Voter Media Platform”, both at votermedia.org/publications. See also the current UBC ballot.
WHEREAS many shareowners lack the time and expertise to make the best voting decisions, yet prefer not to always follow directors’ recommendations;
WHEREAS shareowners could benefit from greater competition in the market for professional proxy voting advice;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that XYZ Corporation shareowners request the Board of Directors to hold a competition for proxy advisors giving public advice on the voting items in the proxy filing for next year’s XYZ annual general meeting, with the following features:
* The competition will be announced no more than six months after this year’s annual general meeting. To insulate advisor selection from influence by the Company’s management, any proxy advisory organization can enter by paying an entry fee of $10,000, and providing their name and website address. Each entry will be announced publicly, promptly after it is received.
* The competition will award a total prize pool equal to the sum of entry fees received plus $30,000 if there are three or more competitors. If there are two competitors, the total prize pool will be the sum of entry fees received plus $20,000.
* Prizes will be determined by shareowner vote on next year’s XYZ proxy. The proxy will show this question: “What percentage of the prize pool should we award to each of the following proxy advisors? (Your votes need not sum to 100%.)” Then the name and website address of each advisor entered will be listed in chronological order of entry, with the following voting choices for each advisor: 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% if there are three or more competitors; if there are fewer than three competitors, then the voting choices will be 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%.
* If there are two or more competitors, then a cutoff number of votes (i.e. shares voted) will be determined such that the sum of awards will be 100%, where each advisor is awarded the highest percentage such that the sum of its votes for that percentage or higher is greater than the cutoff.
* If there is only one advisor entered, then that advisor will receive $10,000 (i.e. their entry fee), plus the median voted percentage times $10,000.
* The XYZ filing that reports the final voting results will show the total number of shares voted for each percentage level, for each advisor.
* It is expected that each proxy advisor will publish advice on its website regarding next year’s XYZ proxy, but there will be no formal requirement to do so. The incentive to win shareowner voting support and to maintain the advisor’s reputation will be considered sufficient motivation for giving quality advice.
(Further information at http://votermedia.org/publications.)
I have no immediate plans to submit this proposal, but I think it would greatly benefit shareowners and improve corporate governance. I recommend anyone to submit it. Feel free to change it as you wish.
Your comments welcomed!
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