The Economist: Muck, Brass and Spleen

22 May 2009

Sarah Wilson

An oil giant’s shareholders flex their muscles

MOST firms’ annual general meetings (AGMs) owe more to North Korea than ancient Greece. By long-standing tradition, bosses make platitudinous speeches, listen to lone dissidents with the air of psychiatric nurses towards patients and wait for their own proposals to be rubber-stamped by the proxy votes of obedient institutional investors. According to Manifest, a shareholder-advice firm, 97% of votes cast across Europe last year backed management.

May 21st 2009
From The Economist print edition

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