2014 Q3 Proxy Update

The 2015 proxy season is fast approaching, PwC and Broadridge released a quarterly research report  which reviews proxy related data from 4,113 shareholder meetings held between January 1 and June 30, 2014 and  highlights several themes and trends that may inform how shareholders and companies will interact on four key issues:

Director Elections: Director elections continue to attract widespread voting, with 93% of elections at large companies garnering votes between 90-100%. In contrast, only 75% of voted shares were cast in the 90-100% range for small-cap firms. Moreover, of the 22,554 directors up for election, roughly 5% failed to receive 70% of the shares voted. Only less than half of that failed to get majority support.