The AP reports on Salon.com on the website set up by TCL board member Bob Monks and Neva Rockefeller Goodwin in support of the shareholder proposals on climate control, renewable energy, and splitting the chairman/CEO at Exxon. To my knowledge, this is the first time shareholder proponents have called on beneficial holders to put pressure on their mutual funds to vote against corporate management.
The site allows investors to click on a fund company and send a message that says, in part, "As a mutual fund shareholder, I am concerned about both the future of the environment and the future of my retirement nest egg." "We intend to watch how these mutual funds respond to this feedback from their customers and then let mutual-fund investors know whether their input was heeded or ignored," Monks and Rockefeller Goodwin said in a statement. Activist groups often petition funds to vote certain ways, but "it's unusual for activists to try to work through the fund's shareholders," said Mike McNamee, spokesman for the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry's biggest trade group. TCL reports have consistently shown that mutual funds vote contrary to the interests of investors on executive compensation and other issues. While the SEC now makes the mutual funds disclose their votes, the information is still difficult to get and holders have very little idea of how the votes of the shares they own are being cast and even less idea of how to direct a better vote. Instead of (or in addition to) petitioning the funds directly, the people filing these proposals have set up a very user-friendly site that lets investors send their views on to the companies that manage their money. I hope this starts a trend – and that future such sites disclose how the funds voted on previous votes.
Nell Minow — Editor
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