Proxy Perils

These corporate clowns had no answers for angry shareholders concerning their bank’s financial malfeasance at their annual stockholder’s meeting today.

Wells Fargo Chairman Stephen Sanger (L) and CEO Tim Sloan (R) leave a meeting with reporters after the annual shareholder meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S., April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Phelan Ebenhack [1]

Wells Fargo is being pressured by Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS), a proxy advisory firm for short-selling hedge funds, which own shares of numerous companies. ISS advises shareholders and votes their shares (often unknowingly) in stockholder voting.

Proxy season is the period during which many companies hold their annual shareholder meetings. It usually occurs in April, as most companies end their fiscal years on Dec. 31 and hold their annual meetings the following spring. By ISS’s own estimate, its opinions affect the governance decisions of professional investors controlling $25 trillion in assets — half the value of the world’s common stock. [2]

I.S.S. is controlled by Gary Retelny, CEO (photo above). It was the first, and is now the largest firm to advise institutions on voting, offering ‘research’ for 35,000 companies in 15 countries; making recommendations on issues including mergers, poison pills, and the fitness of directors. It also collects and transmits corporate ballots. Around 75% of the votes it transmits require a signoff by the client, or are cast by specific instruction. About 25% are on a policy of implied consent, under which votes are cast according to I.S.S.’s annually updated guidelines.

Stock value is the only indicator that matters to financial capitalists such as these. Non-performers will have their directors targeted for removal by a proxy campaign from this powerful Black Hand [3].

At most S&P 500 companies, director support averages around 95% of votes cast, according to pay consulting firm Semler Brossy. Typically a recommendation from ISS that investors vote “against” a director will reduce support they receive by an average of 17 to 18 percentage points.  If 80% is considered the threshold for maintaining a corporate director position (and it is), then ISS’s influence is decisive in corporate governance.

This is the pressure on the markets, and it is bursting at the seams everywhere.  There is basically no long-term productivity left, as financial capital insists on short-term results every time.  It’s less than 100 days into the Trump administration, and it is clear that U.S. capitalism is now rudderless. Donald Trump is so unstable and such an unreliable leader, that it’s created a power vacuum in political economy & the military. After being shot down by stiff popular opposition, the preferred Trump administration option always becomes the ‘nuclear’ one.

A video shows the moment a MOAB, or “mother of all bombs”, struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan.
DVIDS/Handout via Reuters TV

There are now a few hundred powerful individuals basically controlling the world economy. The deep state is a nexus of Wall Street power brokers, CIA/intelligence experts, Pentagon brass and political royalty. They are ideologically & ethically bankrupt, and do nothing but exist in isolation in order to further monetarily enrich themselves.  The first revolutionary task is to specifically identify these individuals, and understand the depth of their criminality.  Once that has been widely achieved, the intervention of the working masses into this mix will quickly sweep this elitist rubbish into the trash bin of political history.

      1. Weird Ideas - Ric Size

 

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