Case Study – Overcoming Shareholder Proposals

A leading environmental services company faced three shareholder proposals at its annual meeting, including two novel proposals requesting an environmental justice audit and a civil rights audit. 

Our role

The company engaged our team to help defeat the proposals. created a voting outlook to inform the approach, using insights from investor vote behavior data on similar proposals and proxy advisor expertise to advise on the projected vote outcome with existing disclosures in place. 

We developed new disclosures to facilitate shareholder engagement and conducted extensive backgrounding on each investor to better understand their priority topics. We also monitored traditional and social media to identify any news that could impact shareholder engagements. 

Once the planning was completed, we trained management and directors on how to best represent the company in engagements with top shareholders, including a suggested talk track and extensive Q&A. 

Our Impact

After extensive investor engagement, our client was able to defeat each proposal on the ballot. Notably, their largest peer was unable to defeat an identical proposal requesting a civil rights audit.