About: Alison

Last week Hewlett-Packard announced a major victory for activists and shareholders – acceptance of the proxy access rule.  What does that mean?  Well, in 2013, shareholders will be able to nominate members for the board of directors on the company’s proxy ballot.  This is a huge step for shareholders because proxy ballots usually only list company-nominated board members.  Another key part of this victory is that the vote will be binding, meaning HP or any other company that accepts this rule will be bound by the results.

The proxy access rule allows long-term shareholders to nominate members for the board of directors.  Long-term shareholders are shareholders who own at least three percent of the voting power of the company’s securities for at least three years.  Shareholders can group together in order to reach the three percent ownership requirements.  Learn more about the proxy access rule in this Dealbook article. Read more

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we thought it was appropriate to share a sweet success with our users.  A few weeks ago, The Hershey Company announced that they will begin purchasing Rainforest Alliance fair trade certified cocoa for all of its Bliss Chocolate products.  Hershey also revealed that they plan to invest an estimated $10 million in farmer education and CocoaLink over the next five years.

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This week’s newsletter focuses on socially responsible investing, or SRI.

Have you ever heard of if?

Last week our Corporate Governance Update covered CEO succession planning, a hot topic in the corporate governance world. According to a global survey of 1,300 companies, 98% of companies think a CEO succession plan is important, but only 35% currently have one in place.

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Walgreens held their annual shareholder meeting last week in Chicago.  We covered Walgreens in last week’s Corporate Governance Update.  We pointed out that over the past three years Walgreens has faced shareholder resolutions that are hot topics in the corporate governance world.  For instance:

• Majority voting (2010)
• Performance-based compensation (2011)
• Executive equity retention (2012) Read more

A few weeks ago, one of our users pointed out a company to us that is doing a commendable job.  We were impressed with what we learned about Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA) from this Bloomberg Businessweek article.

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With the holiday season over, many of us may have already begun daydreaming about what tropical location we want to book flights to with hopes of escaping the winter blues upon us.  Well our recent Environmental Update addresses a hot topic and I don’t mean tropical hot! Read more

With the New Year upon us, we here at Moxy Vote can’t help but reminisce on how much we have all accomplished together this past year.  For instance, it was just a few months ago when we introduced a new way for you all to communicate with companies – Letters to Management.  We were shocked at how quickly everyone jumped on board.  I mean check out how many signatures we got on the following letters:

• Bank of America (7,590)
• Citigroup (5,464)
• Tyson (3,389)
• Hormel (2,377)
• Coca-Cola (3,230)
• Campbell’s (1,952)

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Cotton couture and slave labor – words that many of us may never think of together, but they’re the topic of our latest Social Issues Update.

You know that t-shirt you bought for your brother or the one you received from grandma? You may have thought it was the perfect gift, but take a deeper look into where that shirt originated. One hint – it didn’t just come from the mall. Read more

One of our Advocates, The Center for Political Accountability (CPA), is the topic of a recent article in the Wall Street Journal regarding the hot issue of political donations.

The WSJ article, written by Brad Smith, defends the right of corporations to secretly fund political campaigns.  Smith attacks the CPA and their push towards ‘transparency and oversight’ regarding political donations. Read more