By Dominic Jones on March 31, 2010
A GROWING number of U.S. companies are holding their annual shareholder meetings exclusively online in spite of shareholder concerns that virtual-only meetings may undermine board accountability and exacerbate plunging retail voting rates.
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual meetings, e-proxy, Investor Relations, notice-and-access, shareholder meetings, shareholder participation
By Dominic Jones on March 15, 2010
DOCSTOC, the free document sharing service, has rolled out a new branded embeddable document viewer that can help to improve the usability of PDF-laden investor relations websites. While several other document sharing services let companies convert their PDF and Office-format reports into more engaging online documents, Docstoc is the first to let all users customize [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual reports, document sharing, e-proxy, embeds, Investor Relations, investor relations website, notice-and-access, proxy statements, social media
By Dominic Jones on March 12, 2010
UNDER the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s controversial notice-and-access (N&A) process for the delivery of annual meeting materials, companies can mail their shareholders a slip of paper containing a URL where recipients can access their proxy materials online. Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) is one company that is in the process of sending such a notice to [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual reports, e-proxy, Investor Relations, notice-and-access, proxy statements, proxy voting, SEC, usability
By Dominic Jones on October 16, 2009
AFTER a long delay, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has finally proposed tweaks to its failed “notice and access” process for delivering shareholder meeting materials on the web. The model, which essentially transfers the decision to receive materials electronically or in print from shareowners to companies, has resulted in a dramatic drop in the [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual meetings, annual reports, corporate governance, e-proxy, notice-and-access, proxy statements, proxy voting, SEC
By Dominic Jones on February 9, 2009
SEEKING to improve board accountability to shareholders, one of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) leaders has called for the 18-month-old electronic proxy delivery rules to be improved or repealed. Commissioner Luis Aguilar said at the SEC Speaks in 2009 event in Washington on Friday that the so-called e-Proxy rules, which enable companies to [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual meetings, e-proxy, electronic delivery, Luis Aguilar, notice-and-access, proxy voting, SEC
By Dominic Jones on August 15, 2008
DESPITE a dramatic drop in individual investor participation at companies using the new E-proxy process for their annual meetings, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is studying “rulemaking refinements” that could make it easier for more firms to use the model. Introduced little over one year ago, the E-proxy process allows company investor relations [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged e-proxy, John White, notice-and-access, retail investors, SEC, securities and exchange commission, shareholder participation
By Dominic Jones on June 25, 2008
THE US Securities and Exchange commission has launched a study that could lead to the scrapping of its 75-year-old system that requires companies to file disclosures on prescribed forms like 10Ks, Form 4s and DEF 14As.
Posted in Articles | Tagged disclosure, e-proxy, EDGAR, ir department, ir departments, mandate, new york times, plain language, recommendation, retail investors, rutgers university, SEC filings, securities and exchange commission, stanford university, technology, us sec, XBRL
By Dominic Jones on June 25, 2008
THE US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to address within the next three months whether companies can meet their obligations under Regulation FD by posting information on their corporate websites and in RSS feeds, according SEC Chairman Chris Cox. The issue is among three areas that the SEC’s Advisory Committee on Improvements to [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged blogs, conference calls, corporate websites, disclosure, e-proxy, financial reporting, IR websites, liability, news releases, regulation fd, rss, securities and exchange commission, sun microsystems
By Dominic Jones on June 9, 2008
DESPITE the risk that they might be reaping short-term gains while laying the foundation for long-term pain, 566 US companies used notice-only e-proxy mailings for their shareholder meetings by the end of April. According to figures compiled by Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc., companies have saved about $132 million through lower print and mailing costs. Unfortunately, [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual meeting, annual meetings, annual reports, broadridge financial solutions inc, corporate governance, director elections, e-proxy, mailing costs, new york stock exchange, proxy statement, proxy statements, retail investor, retail investors, retail shareholders, SEC, securities and exchange commission, shareholder meetings, technology
By Dominic Jones on June 3, 2008
THE online annual reporting period in Europe and North America is drawing to a close — and except for an elite group of forward-thinking companies it has been a disappointing season. This was the first year where many companies had the option of delivering their reports on the web as the default option. This was [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual reports, corporate reporting, disclosure, e-proxy, electronic delivery, online annual reports, proxy statements, securities and exchange commission, usability
By Dominic Jones on May 12, 2008
IR Web Report’s Q&As are unpaid profiles of service providers that we believe are doing interesting and innovative work in the area of online investor relations and stakeholder communications. If you would like your firm featured in a Q&A, we invite you to contact us using our general email inbox. Firm name: zu.com communications inc. [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual report, annual reports, content management systems, disclosure, e-proxy, enerflex, feeds, Flash, GRI, Internet, Investor Relations, IR websites, isotechnika, national investor relations institute, online annual reports, online communications, Online Investor Relations, opti canada inc, Ryan Lejbak, social media, stakeholder communications, technology, Tony Zuck, TransCanada
By Dominic Jones on April 22, 2008
I HAVE really enjoyed reading the first issue of InvestorRelationships.com, the new online publication for investor relations, shareholder services, and corporate governance professionals that launched last week. As I have already mentioned, the publication — which is free for this year — is edited by former SEC attorney Broc Romanek, who also is also editor [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged corporate governance, e-proxy, Investor Relations, SEC, securities and exchange commission, shareholder services, TheCorporateCounsel.net
By Dominic Jones on April 18, 2008
I’VE HELD off bringing this up before because I feel bad for the folks at Broadridge Financial Solutions. They’ve been getting it in the neck recently over this whole e-proxy debacle. Even the Colgate-Palmolive Company called them out this week in a letter to the company’s shareholders, though I think there may be more to [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual meeting, annual report, annual reports, e-proxy, meeting materials, PDFs, proxy statement, proxy statements, SEC, shareholder
By Dominic Jones on April 10, 2008
YOU know how under the SEC’s notice-and-access process companies send their shareholders a postcard-size notice asking them to go online to view their annual meeting materials? Well, I think you will agree with me that the single most important bit of information on that notice is the URL that you want people to go to. [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged e-proxy, Investor Relations, notice-and-access, url redirection, URLs, web usability
By Dominic Jones on April 4, 2008
A WEEK ago, I called the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) notice-and-access process for delivering annual meeting materials on the web “one gigantic flop from an investor protection perspective.” I think it’s worth beating that drum a little louder in light of the latest statistics from Broadridge Financial Solutions showing a sharp drop in [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged communications, corporate websites, disclosure, e-proxy, financial reporting, Investor Relations, IR websites, management, NIRI, notice-and-access, online communications, SEC, securities, shareholder relations, technology, usability, XBRL
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