June 24, 2009
I own stock in several companies. Each company that nominates a candidate for their board of directors send me a proxy vote form. When I have been sent proxy material and vote information (dates and times), it gives me plenty of time to research the candidates history. If I need more information about the candidate, I can request information directly from the company, or read the candidate's history on their company website.
Currently, neither do I own $2,000 of any company, nor have I been a stockholder for over one year of over half the companies in my portfolio, and how would a guarantee of keeping my stock in the company assure I wouldn't sell later--how could this assure anything? for which, if I chose to submit a candidate for election, would disqualify me from submitting a candidate if, at first, I don't send form 14-8 to the SEC and documents to the company.
This is the part that bothers me: I can vote my shares but cannot, because of restrictions, propose a candidate for election.
Whether you own $2,000 worth of stock now or contribute to the fund, it could be worth $2,000 in ten years, so then I can propose a candidate?
What if I own $2,000 worth of shares and, because of economic turmoil, the stock loses value. Can I still propose a candidate for election?
I know this sounds silly, and that's the purpose behind writing it. I want to show how trivial this all means to a proxy voter. The only thing I'm interested in is to know which stockholder elected a candidate for election, and I need all the information about the stockholder and candidate as possible, especially if I cannot find this information on the company website.
Most important, I want to know why the stockholder wants someone different. I need a good reason to consider a new candidate, to reconsider voting for a director with a long, professional tenor in office. Knowing who the stockholder is and the candidate isn't enough.
I want to know why.