Kingsdale Advisors has released its annual Proxy Season Review for 2018. The Review examines trends observed in 2018, predicts issues on the horizon, and provides advice to both issuers and activists in the marketplace. In what follows, we pick out just a few of the important trends that emerge from Kingsdale’s analysis. The complete report … Continue reading
Discussions around board gender diversity are picking up steam in the lead up to the 2018 proxy season. Some of the leading proxy advisory firms, namely the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis & Co. LLC (Glass Lewis), appear to have caught wind of the discussions – both firms added a voting policy in … Continue reading
On November 16, 2017, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) released its 2018 Americas Proxy Voting Guidelines Updates (the Updates). These updates implement changes in a number of areas, with the most significant being a gender diversity policy and new criteria for determining when a director is “overboarded”. Except where indicated below, the changes are effective for … Continue reading
ISS’ preliminary postseason review for 2015 provides a report on U.S. activism trends in 2015. ISS identifies five key takeaways from the first half of 2015: Proxy access proposals arrived in a big way this season, with almost 120 proposals and average votes in favour of 54.4% (a jump of more than 20 percentage points from … Continue reading
In its recent decision in Orange Capital, LLC v Partners Real Estate Investment Trust, 2014 ONSC 3793, the Ontario Superior Court has offered new guidance on the interpretation of advance notice provisions used in the context of a proxy contest. The decision is another victory for Norton Rose Fulbright’s Special Situations team, which represented Orange … Continue reading
The most publicized proxy battle of 2013, Agrium Inc.’s showdown with activist US hedge fund Jana Partners, introduced the concept of the “golden leash” to the Canadian proxy scene. Jana nominated four independent directors to the board of Agrium, and offered to pay them, on top of their compensation as directors, a percentage of any … Continue reading
