Proxy Abuse, MMM 1-3-2010

CAN YOU IMAGINE PROXY ABUSE? 

Monday Morning Message, January 3, 2011

Welcome to our new look and new format for the New Year!  We have tried to improve our ability to deliver the MMM to you and trust you will continue to let me know of how you feel about the messages.  I want to give a special salute to the witness and life of Wes Pennington.  I was privileged to be at the memorial service for the former Air Force Colonial and most recently our Ex Dir. of the NACFC.  More than that, I was also privileged to work with him when serving on the NACFC board and always found him to be a great ambassador for the Lord.

The subject of proxy abuse was raised in a suit filed by the US Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to overturn recent changes that the SEC has made to open access to corporate proxies.  The fear is that unions or minority shareholders will wreak havoc on the election of directors to a seat on the company’s board.  Of course that assumes a union shareholder would intentionally do something to violate their fiduciary duty and in fact any shareholder would be trying to harm their own investment by offering alternative candidates.  Since many people have worked very hard for many years to get shareholder rights on proxy issues, it is hardly time to close this small crack in the door before it even opens.  I do hope you will vote all of your proxies this year as a tribute to the efforts to open this to all shareholders. 

This is also part of the same lobbying group that represents large corporate managements who used their pension funds as an ATM machine for earnings during the bull markets of the 1990’s.  If the open proxy and other corporate oversight systems had been in place, management’s ability to re-price stock options; build golden parachutes; and borrow thirty (30+) times their net worth on questionable mortgage securities may never have happened.   Most of those directors are still hanging around and serving on boards with little evidence of any culpability from the abuses of the past decade.  Any process that brings new blood to the board room sounds like a good idea to me. Does it seem odd that this group would be concerned about corporate abuse?

Micah 4:5 (RSV) “For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” 

Thanks to all of you who have purchased or gifted a copy of Kingdom Gains to your family, friends, and clients.  If you have not received your copy yet, it is high time to visit our website to understand the BRI movement: www.kingdomgains.com 

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