Foley’s latest National Directors Institute Web Conference Series, Moving Your Business Forward: Are You Taking the Right Steps?, explores how boards of directors and executives can adapt their corporate governance and business strategies to make the most of changing market conditions.
During this session on November 18, 2009, we showcased Risk Metrics Group 2010 Institutional Investors Issues. Given recent delays in the expected arrival of legislative and regulatory reforms in response to the market’s meltdown, 2010 probably won’t produce the oft-predicted Perfect Storm. Activist investors may come close, however, to bowling a Perfect Game at some annual meetings next year. Indeeed, the 2010 Proxy Season promises a full ten frames of fast-paced action. With broker votes in the gutter, some players now expect to topple board members like Ten Pins via “just vote ‘no’” campaigns. Fans of independent board chairs will take sharp aim at the boardroom Kingpin — the combined CEO/Chair — as well. Shareholder proposal proponents will seek to build on the high scores that they rolled last season on proposals aimed at knocking down classified boards, plurality voting and global warming. Hedge fund managers look to rebound from an injury-plagued ’09 season by seeking to throw both boardroom strikes and spares in ’10. In the midst of this action, all eyes will remain fixed inside the Beltway Lanes in Washington DC where members of Congress, three SEC Commissioners and President (and Bowler-in-Chief) Obama’s team look to complete a difficult public policy split by picking up both Proxy Access and Say on Pay. The SEC also promises to throw several late-breaking hooks at the issuer community via a bag full of new disclosure rules.
Foley Partner Peter C. Underwood moderated as RiskMetrics Group’s Pat McGurn framed the 2010 Proxy Season’s Top 10 issues.
For more information about this program, please contact Jennifer Bartz at [email protected].