State Street outlined its expectations for virtual-only shareholder meetings this year and going forward, with an emphasis on companies maintaining the same shareholder rights that accompany in-person meetings.
Its expectations for 2022 VSMs include:
- Providing specific and reasonable guidelines for shareholders to ask questions of management and the board
- Displaying all reasonable questions posed during the meeting
- Disclosing clear procedures for questions received during the meeting, but not answered due to time or other restrictions
In addition to considering the company’s operating environment (including local regulatory developments and specific relevant market circumstances), State Street will support management proposals that seek to grant the company discretion to hold VSMs on a permanent basis if the proposals include:
- Strong disclosure detailing the rationale for why the company should be granted this ability, and how shareholder rights will be protected in a virtual-only meeting format; and
- Time-bound commitments to this ability expiring (e.g. one year) and/or a commitment to putting this ability to a shareholder vote again at the following year’s annual general meeting
Notably, although the briefing indicates that State Street will look forward to the resumption of in-person meetings when health and safety conditions permit, it reportedly was “encouraged by the success of VSMs in 2020 and 2021.”
Access additional resources on our Virtual Shareholder Meetings page.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!