IR Magazine's interview with IBM (and Society member) Evan Barth and his colleagues - summarized in this recent article: "Inside IBM’s year-round engagement efforts" - offers insights into the company's shareholder engagement process that other companies may wish to consider to enhance their own engagement program.
Key takeaways include:
- IBM's in-season engagement begins in March after it files its proxy statement. In 2019, it engaged with more than 100 institutional investors (more than 70% of its institutional ownership) and contacted more than 250,000 retail investors and registered holders.
- In the engagement off-season (September - February), in preparation for the 2019 proxy season, IBM met with investors representing more than 30% - and contacted investors representing more than 50% - of shares voted at its 2018 meeting.
- The company tracks feedback from each investor meeting, which - in turn - allows it to customize its future engagements by being prepared with the right people at each meeting to discuss issues of particular interest to the investor in detail.
- The internal engagement team keeps an eye out for, and shares, investors' position papers with relevant others internally to assess how the stated positions align with the company's practices.
- The company launched an annual webcast for investors that accommodates a deeper dive on emerging topics of interest such as ESG (last year) and ethics in AI (slated for this year), which has been hugely successful.
Evan also emphasizes the importance of proxy disclosure on the company's shareholder engagement activities and outcomes.
Access numerous shareholder engagement disclosure examples in Donnelley's "Guide to Effective Proxies" posted on our Annual Meeting/Proxy Statement page, and additional information & resources on our Shareholder Engagement and Proxy Season 2020 pages. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!