Jasper Street’s Monthly Insights includes shareworthy insights on recent developments on core proxy season focal areas including shareholder activism, shareholder proposals, and institutional investor developments. Notably with regard to the SEC’s recent shift in managing Rule 14a-8 no-action requests, the firm reports 105 companies having excluded 131 proposals as of February 28 since the November 17 announcement. The following bar charts show the bases for exclusions as of that date, with many proposals citing more than one procedural and/or substantive basis for exclusion:
As reported previously and as noted below, shareholders are making good on their threats to pursue other tactics in response to companies’ unilateral exclusion of their proposals in the absence of shareholder engagement.