30.) And it may further empower third-party proxy advisory firms, who advise shareholders on how to vote on an array of corporate matters, and who have already been criticized as having too much sway. (BlackRock said clients accounting for $452 billion in assets used the program as of Sept. Still, it is unclear whether shareholders will more broadly make use of this new ability. Giving shareholders more say may force companies to adopt more politics-style campaigns, which would most likely be expensive, to reach a more expansive base of voting investors. “Those of us who lead public companies will have a broader set of shareholders with whom to engage,” Fink wrote in his letter. That could pose new challenges for corporate America. Charles Schwab and Vanguard said recently that they were exploring similar programs. Giving investors more say over their holdings is one way to address a major criticism of giant money managers: that they hold too much sway over publicly traded companies by virtue of their huge share holdings. BlackRock is also expected to extend the option to clients in some British mutual funds for next year’s voting season. The firm said that Voting Choice was now open to investors representing $1.8 trillion of its $3.8 trillion in index funds. BlackRock aims to give them a voice through Voting Choice, an initiative it announced last year to give institutional investors and some individual ones options for voting at annual shareholder meetings. “The next generation of investors will increasingly demand to be heard,” Fink wrote. For its part, BlackRock will expand a program that lets investors in its funds choose how they vote in corporate elections, in a recognition that shareholders “don’t want to sit on the sidelines.”īut even Fink concedes that giving investors more say could make the business of running a publicly traded company messier than ever, especially when he says voting “should be as easy to do so as it is to buy a mutual fund or E.T.F. In a letter to clients of BlackRock, the $8 trillion money manager that he runs, Fink wrote that a “revolution in shareholder democracy” was growing. BlackRock backs more “shareholder democracy”Īs investors push for a bigger say in how companies tackle a variety of issues - including supporting or opposing environmentally and socially minded goals - Larry Fink wants to give them even more of a voice in the boardroom.
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