Enhancing Effectiveness - Proxy Style Options

Current shareholder materials must engage, provoke and interact with your shareholders, yet provide your company’s data in a clear, concise way, using plain English. Your shareholder communications advisors must review your corporation’s voting results year-to-year, offer peer group analysis and provide education in best practices related to investor outreach. The goal is simple: to improve voting results and shareholder participation, eliminate unnecessary steps in the process and stay within budget requirements.

Stylized proxy statements are the latest trend in shareholder communications as an increasing number of companies are placing an emphasis on positive corporate news and using graphic design to make their proxies more visually engaging. A company’s proxy statement is a crucial vehicle for communicating with shareholders, and when presented in the right way, it can have a tremendous impact in improving investor engagement and encouraging favorable outcomes in shareholder voting. The problem is that far too many companies fail to realize the full potential of the proxy, viewing it as more of a compliance piece than a shareholder communications document. Proxy statements are often presented to provide an over view of an annual meeting, but industry experts believe that companies’ statements are still written with SEC compliance in mind, not the end-user: institutional investors . This leads to proxies that are cumbersome, confusing and do little to foster shareholder engagement.

As shareholder participation has continued to decline in recent years, a growing number of proactive companies have taken the time to review their approach to proxy statements in effort to enhance the way content is presented and reengage investors. Enter “stylized” proxy statements.