NEW YORK, N.Y., APRIL 23, 2019 – The ProxyPulse™ report released today shows that environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) matters are gaining the attention of shareholders and public company boards.
“Support for shareholder proposals rose among institutional investors and retail shareholders, alike, to 43% of the shares voted,” said Chuck Callan, Broadridge SVP, Regulatory Affairs. “That’s a higher level than we’ve seen in recent years. The proposals spanned a wide range of topics, including board diversity, climate change, political contributions, voting rights, proxy access, and executive pay, among other topics.”
Voting results from 1,024 public company annual shareholder meetings held during the “mini proxy season” (July 1 and December 31, 2018) were released today by Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) and the PwC Governance Insights Center, together with insights on the 2019 proxy season. The report can be found at: www.ProxyPulse.com.
Some specifics from this “mini proxy season” include:
- Institutions own 65% of the shares while individuals own 35% of the shares; these percentages remained constant over the prior year period.
- Voting participation (of the shares each segment owns) was 84% for institutions and 29% for individuals.
- On average, support for directors was 89%. Retail shareholders were more supportive on average than institutions. However, 143 directors failed to attain majority support (out of a total of 3,367 that stood for election).
- On average, support for say-on-pay was 83%. 79 say-on-pay proposals failed to garner at least 70% support, a threshold closely watched by some governance professionals.