Any progress that has been made towards majority voting for company directors has been limited to large firms, a new report by The Corporate Library shows.
The report by Beth Young and Annalisa Barrett, shows that among larger, Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, almost half or 49.5 percent have switched to majority voting for directors. Another 18.4 percent have adopted a plurality plus resignation model while 32.1 percent of the S&P 500 firms use a straight plurality meaning that those directors who receive the most votes are elected.
Smaller firms, however, “are not following” the lead of larger firms in going for a majority vote. Indeed, surveys of smaller firms in the Russell 1000 and 3000 indices show that a majority still use a straight plurality.
The authors believe that while larger firms have made signifiant and unmistakable progress towards majority voting, the majority of smaller firms, which do not get much media attention, have not.
My takeaway: We’re talking seperate universes here. While the media universe involving mostly large firms has majority voting gathering steam, the other reality hasn’t shown much progress.
