The right to ask questions and voice their opinions at annual general meetings (AGMs) represents one of the few avenues for shareholders to communicate directly and publicly with the firm's management. Examining AGM transcripts of U.S. companies between 2007 and 2021, we find that shareholders...

The right to ask questions and voice their opinions at annual general meetings (AGMs) represents one of the few avenues for shareholders to communicate directly and publicly with the firm's management. Examining AGM transcripts of U.S. companies between 2007 and 2021, we find that shareholders...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to some countries, including Australia, enacting temporary changes to their corporate laws to allow virtual meetings of shareholders to be conducted. The purpose of this article is to identify and evaluate the corporate governance arguments arising with a move to...

We examine determinants and consequences of ‘virtual’ shareholder meetings (VSM). Using a pre-Covid sample of voluntary VSM adopters, we do not find that firms choose the virtual format to avoid shareholders’ scrutiny. VSM are more frequent among tech firms, and firms traditionally more...

This paper analyzes how trading after shareholder meetings changes the composition of the shareholder base. Analyzing daily trades, we find that mutual funds reduce their holdings if their votes are opposed to the voting outcome. Trading volume is high even when stock prices do not change, peaks...

Voting in shareholder meetings has become a popular mechanism of corporate governance throughout the world, and shareholders' main tool for communicating with the company's management. A variety of factors have been shown in the behavioral economic literature to affect voters' behavior,...

We find that annual shareholder meetings conducted online can significantly increase the participation of shareholders, especially minority shareholders. This finding is more evident when the cost of physically attending the annual meeting is higher, and when the firm's ownership is more...

This paper tests whether very diversified and patient investors, also known as universal owners, tend to vote in favor of shareholder resolutions instructing corporations to reduce or communicate on the negative externalities they produce. Our sample includes 213 US fund families that voted on...

Since August 2009, German legislation allows for voluntary Say on Pay Votes (SoPV) during Annual General Meetings (AGMs). We examine 1,169 AGMs of all German listed firms with more than 10,000 agenda items over the period 2010-2013 to identify (1) determinants and approval rates of voluntary...

This paper studies voting in shareholders meetings. We focus on the informational efficiency of different voting mechanisms, taking into account that they affect both management's incentives before the meeting and shareholders' decisions at the meeting. We first focus on the case in which the...

Motivated by the increasing influence of shareholder votes on corporate policies, we examine investors’ perceptions of activism via voting. To identify instances of activism via voting, we focus on annual meetings with at least one ballot item where a substantial fraction of shareholders is...

We examine investors' perceptions of shareholder activism via voting. To identify instances of activism via voting, we focus on annual meetings with at least one ballot item where a substantial fraction of shareholders is expected to vote against management's voting recommendation, indicating an...

Do institutional investors engage with companies on corporate externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions? And if so, why? We study voting at shareholder meetings by two emblematic global investors: BlackRock, a major asset manager, and the Norway Fund, a responsible sovereign wealth fund....

We analyze the market reaction to the sentiment of the CEO speech at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). As the AGM is typically preceded by several information disclosures, the CEO speech may be expected to contribute only marginally to investors' decision-making. Surprisingly, however, we...

We analyze the market reaction to the sentiment of the CEO speech at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). As the AGM is typically preceded by several information disclosures, the CEO speech may be expected to contribute only marginally to investors' decision-making. Surprisingly, however, we...

Proxy advisory firms have become important players in corporate governance, but the extent of their influence over shareholder votes is debated. We estimate the effect of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommendations on voting outcomes by exploiting exogenous variation in ISS...

The role and position of shareholders within a listed public company has been a subject of debate on both the national and the international level for decades. This debate focuses primarily on the rights that are, or perhaps, should be conferred upon shareholders in such a company and,...

Shareholders' meetings provide links of communication between shareholders and management and enables members to exercise their votes. The law that governs these meetings is, therefore, an important aspect of corporate governance. This paper identifies critical weaknesses in the law on...