FREEHOLD, N.J., September 23, 2021 - UMH Properties, Inc. (NYSE: UMH) today announced that, on September 22, 2021, the Board of Directors approved an increase in the size of the Board from 11 to 12 directors and appointed Ms. Angela D. Pruitt as a Class II Director...
SSE plc (LSE:SSE) is close to being split into two separate blue-chip companies following pressure from a Wall Street activist. The Daily Telegraph has learnt that SSE, chaired by former civil service head Sir John Manzoni, could announce the plans in the coming weeks at the company's interim results. Insiders cautioned that the split was yet to be finalised and the board could still decide to sell to one of the businesses to private equity or scrap the plans altogether...
LONDON (Reuters) - Activist Bluebell Capital Partners has urged Belgian chemicals company Solvay to replace Chief Executive Ilham Kadri, saying she had failed to stop the discharge into the sea of waste from a soda ash production plant in Italy. The move is part of Bluebell's campaign aimed at creating change at companies it says are falling short on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and reflects a growing trend among activists to target companies over ESG shortcomings...
Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN) (“Trinity”) today announced the addition of Jason G. Anderson to its Board of Directors...
Shareholder rights law firm Robbins LLP reminds investors that a class action was filed on behalf of all persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Live Ventures Inc. (NASDAQ: LIVE) securities between December 28, 2016 and August 3, 2021, for violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Live Ventures is a holding company. Until 2015, Live Ventures focused on providing online marketing solutions for small and medium business...
LONDON (Reuters) - Activist investor Cevian Capital has pushed its stake in insurer Aviva above 5%, according to a stock exchange filing on Wednesday. Cevian said in June it had built up a 4.95% stake in the insurer, which has sold off several businesses in the past year. Cevian said it wanted to see Aviva return five billion pounds ($6.86 billion) of excess capital to shareholders. Cevian's shareholding reached 5.02% on Aug 20, the filing showed...
BOSTON/TOKYO (Reuters) - Hiromichi Mizuno's connections, spanning from the Japanese government to Harvard University, made him a guiding voice among climate-focused investors worldwide. Now those ties have placed his own conduct under scrutiny after an independent report focused on Mizuno's role in alleged collusion between the management of Toshiba Corp and Japan's trade ministry to block foreign investors from gaining board influence at the conglomerate...
BERKELEY, California (Reuters) - Shareholders of Nikola Corp have voted against a proposal to approve compensation paid to its "named executive officers," including $159.2 million to founder and former executive chairman Trevor R. Milton, the electric truck maker said on Tuesday. The decision, although non-binding, illustrates shareholders' discontent about Nikola, once a high-flying company whose shares tanked over 80% from its peak partly due to ongoing probes by regulators and prosecutors...
Hawthorne, an experienced board member and CEO, to join the Audit Committee this June ASGN Incorporated (NYSE: ASGN), one of the foremost providers of IT and professional services in the technology, digital, creative, engineering and life sciences fields across commercial and government sectors, today announced the appointment of Maria R. Hawthorne to the Company’s Board of Directors, effective June 17, 2021 following the Company’s annual meeting of stockholders...
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's influential trade ministry effectively colluded with Toshiba Corp's management to influence shareholders votes on director nominees at last year's annual general meeting, an independent probe has found. Discrediting the government's efforts to improve corporate governance in Japan, the investigators' report lays out how the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) leaned on Harvard University's endowment fund and other foreign investors in Toshiba...
Granite’s (NYSE:GVA) board of directors has appointed three new directors and has elected Michael F. McNally as its new board chair. Mr. McNally has served on the board since 2016. The board also promoted Kyle T. Larkin to president and chief executive officer...
(Reuters) - A new generation of executives at the world's biggest asset managers is helping drive an uprising against Corporate America that environmental and social justice activists have long campaigned for. The big mutual fund firms, whose stock holdings amount to trillions of dollars, used to be loyal members of the corporate establishment...
May 26 (Reuters) - Activist investor Carl Icahn holds a roughly $400 million, or 1%, stake in insurer Allstate Corp , the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Icahn has not yet made any demands as he supports the insurer's move to cut costs and sell more products directly to consumers, the report added. Allstate and Icahn Capital did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment...
(Reuters) - Aerospace company Boeing Co was explicit, naming who among its dozen directors were women, Asian and African American. Agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland Co offered a more general accounting, saying its board was 55% diverse. Illinois officials have seen the range of responses from local companies - many with international profiles - to new state requirements they identify the gender and race or ethnicity of each board member...
BOSTON/LONDON (Reuters) - BlackRock voted against more company directors and backed more shareholder resolutions in the first quarter than a year ago, as the world's biggest asset manager looks to push boards to do more on climate and other sustainability issues. The information from the $9 trillion New York-based money manager in a report to be released on Wednesday helps to explain what is shaping up to be a tough shareholder voting season at major corporations this spring...
NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) -General Electric Co shareholders rejected top executives' compensation packages, including a payout of as much as $230 million to CEO Larry Culp, at the industrial conglomerate's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday. While the shareholder vote was non-binding, the move was a rare rebuke of a major corporation's handling of its executive pay. It comes after GE laid off 20,000 workers last year...
In Personal Board of Directors, top business leaders talk about the people they turn to for advice, and how those people have shaped their perspective and helped them succeed. Previous installments from the series are here. Anna Catalano stumbled into the energy sector as a freshman in college after snagging a ride home to Kansas City with the son of a division manager at oil company Amoco Corp...
(Reuters) -Wells Fargo & Co's executive pay plan for 2020 received backing from only about 57% of investor votes on Tuesday, a narrow win for the company and the latest evidence of the tougher scrutiny that shareholders are putting on CEO compensation this year. CEO and President Charles Scharf was paid $20.4 million in 2020, down from $34.3 million in 2019, when he was first named to lead the bank, according to the company's proxy statement filed in March...
PARIS, April 26 (Reuters) - French media and publishing firm Lagardere confirmed on Monday it was reviewing a project to transform itself into a joint-stock company, unravelling an arcane structure that had caused strife with shareholders. "Discussions are ongoing in this respect between the company and its main shareholders. There can be no certainty as to the outcome of the current discussions," said Lagardere, whose businesses include Paris Match magazine and airport shops...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - New York state's pension fund on Friday threw its support behind an activist fund's slate of nominees to Exxon Mobil Corp's board, heating up a proxy fight for the company's future. The biggest U.S. oil producer Exxon and activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 are battling over board seats following Exxon's historic net annual loss of $22.4 billion for 2020. The fund has criticized the producer for "significant underperformance" and a lagging approach to cleaner fuels...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Yasuo Takeuchi remembers the horror he felt in 2017 when, as chief financial officer of Japan's Olympus Corp, he was told an activist investor had taken a stake in the company: the barbarians were at the gate. But as he listened to proposals from ValueAct Capital, Takeuchi began to see the San Francisco-based fund as a potential catalyst for change at Olympus, which was still reeling from an accounting scandal and, he believed, remained too domestic in its outlook...
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A potential bid for Toshiba Corp is set to test both corporate governance at the scandal-hit conglomerate as well as rule changes in Japan designed to improve transparency and protect minority shareholders. The process puts the spotlight on the world's third-largest economy's efforts to attract more investments from overseas just as global private equity firms are hunting for more big-ticket deals in the country...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Teamsters Union on Monday urged shareholders of oil refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp to vote against an approval on executive compensation, arguing that the company provides outsized and unnecessary exit packages for top leaders. The union said in a letter released on Monday that shareholders should at an April 28 meeting instead vote in favor of a proposal that attempts to rein in the vesting of unearned equity following a change in control...
(Reuters) - The acting chair of the U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday called for clearer disclosures on how asset managers cast the votes that dominate most corporate elections. Securities and Exchange Commission acting chair Allison Herren Lee said disclosure rules have failed to help everyday investors especially as they focus more on environmental and social issues...