little guy stock holders - too much power

[GURPS]

Delaware chief justice wants to limit shareholder powers -Financial Times


Strine said that without such curbs investors could "turn the corporate governance process into a constant 'Model United Nations' where managers are repeatedly distracted by referenda on a variety of topics proposed by investors with trifling stakes," the newspaper said.

Strine's proposals include charging investors to submit proposals to a company's annual shareholder meeting and reducing the frequency of say-on-pay votes which could be held every three or four years, it reported.

Strine also said institutional investors were being overwhelmed by the number of votes they were required to cast and were failing to give them proper attention, the business daily said.

It also quoted Strine as saying that activist hedge funds should be made to reveal more about their positions and motives and to make those disclosures more quickly.

activist hedge funds ... is this about that billionaire whiner

 

[tommyjo]

For those who would actually like to read the original articles:

Here it the FT piece: http://blogs.ft.com/businessblog/2014/03/it-is-too-soon-to-put-limits-on-us-shareholder-democracy/

Here is the conclusion of FT which does not fit the narrative of GRUPS:

All this will comfort US directors and executives who fear the consequences of what Mr Strine describes as “direct democracy” of investors, particularly the rise of short-termist investors. But US boards still enjoy some remarkable protections from companies’ ultimate owners, and while I can see that the buzzing of activists is an annoyance and a distraction, I remain unconvinced that activism is a plague on the US economy. As I wrote in a recent column, citing recent research on categories of activism by Dionysia Katelouzou of King’s College London:


Many assumptions about hedge fund activists are myths. They are not necessarily short-termists (39 per cent of her sample held on for more than three years), they do not generally seek control, and their aggressiveness is often overstated because journalists would rather write about a punch-up than a love-in.

Mr Strine makes a compelling case for review. But I fear that measures to curb the irritating short-termists could also kill off those shareholders who are well-informed and committed to their companies for the long term. Worse, they could be used by more radical opponents of US shareholder democracy to destabilise the movement before it has found its footing. Over to you, Prof Bebchuk.

For those who are really interested, the entire Columbia Law Review article upon which GRUPS posted his cut and paste job is listed here: http://columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Strine-L..pdf It is a short 54 page read.

 

[SamSpade]

In *GURPS*'s defense - he actually posted the entire Reuters piece. You can hardly fault him for hacking up a news article and offering a different conclusion than what the Columbia Law Review gave, when he actually posted everything.

Reuters isn't particularly known as a right-wing site.

 

[stgislander]

Careful TJ... Tilted might come along and smack you down again.