Shareholder proposal proponents are posting their remarks online

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I’m surprised that this doesn’t happen more often. That a shareholder proponent posts the remarks that they intend to deliver at the annual meeting in advance in an attempt to gain support for their proposal. Here’s a note from Bob Eccles with one example of this:

Here is the speech that Tim Youmans, lead-North America for EOS at Federated Hermes, will give on May 1st at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. In it he will ask the company’s shareholders to vote in favor of a proposal for the board of directors to issue an annual report “assessing how the company manages physical and transitional climate-related risks and opportunities.”

He will also ask Mr. Buffett to change his vote in favor of the proposal. The Gates Foundation is the company’s largest shareholder. Given that Mr. Gates has been speaking very eloquently about climate change, I’m hoping that his vote will match his rhetoric.

I don’t see Tim’s speech filed as exempt solicitation material with the SEC – nor a notice of exempt solicitation under Rule 14a-2 – but it is similar to this exempt solicitation material that Federated Hermes did file.

And then here’s a note from Church of England’s Adam Matthews about the remarks he delivered at the Shell annual meeting.