Business

Rise of shareholder activism
by Barbora Misakova

It looks like this year should be much sharper because of shareholder activism which arose a lot in comparison with the last year. The Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C. which represents 160 of the largest American companies is afraid of battles over corporate governance. John Castellani, President of Business Roundtable thinks these battles are increasingly politicized and so they could defend the boards to fulfill their responsibilities. In an interview with J. Castellani he answered the question about how much progress was made in corporate governance by pointing at past five years when more reforms in this field was made than in previous 50 years. On the question of reporter if he expects an increase in shareholder resolutions this proxy season he answered "Yes, we do. We saw a 20 percent increase from 2006 to 2007." and added that some of proposals have been filed at a very aggressive rate. When reporter asked him where the greatest pressure comes from, he answered that first of all it is from social, environmental, or labor-related activists. He pointed at growing number of proposals related to global warming, ethical treatment of animals, worker rights etc. As the second source of pressure he mentioned shareholder activists who are "claiming that they favor better corporate governance."As soon as the reporter asked him if he thinks that corporate governance is being politicized he asked: "Absolutely." On the question: "Why is most of the activism aimed at boards rather than managements?" he answered that pressure is actually aimed at the company but through the boards. Later he said some of the boards to the surge of activism respond well, but the most important thing for boards is communications: "We think it's very important that boards find ways to communicate with all their shareholders."

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080214/tc_nm/videogames_consoles_dc;_ylt=Ah45MR.TeZaGz9AAvOlIQx0jtBAF

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Edited by Katarina Rastocna

Labels: Business, CantellTV, Chris Cantell, Christopher Cantell, digital broadcasting, SigEx Foundry, SigEx Telecom

posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:42 AM