SO OFTEN lately, public companies have been under attack. Most of these attacks have been directed at Chinese companies publicly-traded on US stock exchanges. When these attacks started they were largely ignored. No one was surprised that a handful of small-cap Chinese companies were frauds. But when the attacks exposed some mid-cap companies that were [...]
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There is a famous Latin saying, “Cui bono?” that was used in Roman trials to help determine the underlying truth of a matter. The phrase translates into “To whose benefit?” and is meant to suggest the possibility of a hidden motive or that th…
The Harvard Business Review offers a provocative thought in its April 2010 issue: According to two professors at overseas universities (which may be relevant), shareholders are not the owners of corporations – and boards of directors shouldn’t feel so compelled to make decisions in the shareholders’ interest. No, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke [...]
Update: Activists announce Feb. 4 that they are organizing for proxy fights and lobbying efforts to oppose corporate political involvement. The effort is under the rubric of ShareOwners.org.
The ink is barely dry on the US Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend money on political ads, but one likely consequence is that activist shareholders will [...]
One regulatory reform proposal has slowed down a bit, at least for now: The Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t plan to vote until early 2010 on a “proxy access” rule, which would help shareholder activists nominate slates for corporate boards, The Wall Street Journal reports today.
Delay of an SEC vote from autumn to January or February means [...]
All eyes are on Washington this fall, as the country watches hope and change take hold through new laws and regulations. When NIRI President and CEO Jeff Morgan briefed a group of investor relations people and corporate lawyers in Kansas City on changes coming our way from DC, “scary” was a word that kept recurring.
“There [...]
Discussion of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed new “proxy access” rule, aimed at giving activist shareholders an easier shot at electing members or slates to boards of directors, can get pretty arcane.
So I was glad to see, in today’s Wall Street Journal, a good primer on 14a-11 and a succinct and quotable quote that, [...]
As I wrote last week, the highlight of the NIRI Southwest Regional Conference this year was a case study on how activist investors swoop in on a company that is experiencing operational and governance problems. That is not to say that the case study…
Investor relations as a profession doesn’t often make Page 1, but today’s Wall Street Journal casts IR in a starring role in Deutsche Bank’s covert maneuvering against a dissident shareholder and courtroom enemy.
“Banker, Gadfly, Lawyer, Spy” is a mystery thriller worthy of a John Grisham novel. For IROs, the story is just that: a good yarn [...]
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) Southwest Regional Conference in San Antonio. I’m on record as having said this before, but I think it bears repeating: I believe that the Southwest Regiona…
