2014 Proxy Season Wrap-Up (July 2014)

The 2014 annual meeting season continued to reflect the robust engagement efforts between issuers and investors that have been underway in recent years. Although the volume of shareholder resolutions appearing in corporate proxies, as well as the number receiving majority support, was closely in line with the first half of 2013, shareholder advocacy for traditional governance reforms increasingly moved off ballot (see Tables 1 and 2). Direct outreach has also proven to be an effective conduit for investors to register concerns over executive pay, resulting in a diminished number of compensation-related shareholder proposals and high levels of support for say on pay (SOP) in 2014.