Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Pension Funds Drawing Up List of Targets

Shareholders may soon get more power to shake up corporate boardrooms in the United States after the financial crisis exposed glaring weaknesses in how companies were managed, Reuters reports.
The Securities and Exchange Commission will meet at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday to decide whether to adopt a rule that would give shareholders an easier way to nominate corporate board directors.
Giving shareholders the ability to place their director nominees on the corporate proxy statement has long been sought by big activist shareholders who want more say on how their companies are run.
Awaiting those new regulations, big activist pension funds are gearing up to compile a short-list of target companies in the next month, The Financial Times reported.
The move is part of a drive to shake up underperformers and will likely see the list come together after the September meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors –- a group whose pension funds have total assets of more than $3 trillion.
The proposal that would give shareholders the ability to seat their own nominees at the board of directors’ table is expected to be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
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