What Investors Want: CII Spring 2019

The Council of Institutional Investors meets in Washington DC every spring, and as fascinating and timely as the presentations and panels are, what goes on behind the scenes is increasingly even more significant. VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow made presentations at two of these behind-the-scenes events, discussing buybacks with members of the CII board and discussing Majority Action’s new carbon-neutral initiative with investors and interest groups.

Highlights of the conference:

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce politely thanked the CII members for their comments and recommendations on various issues like the universal proxy (she is still unpersuaded) and then cited “Seinfeld” to shift to the “airing of grievances,” which sounded suspiciously like the talking points of the fake dark money front group funded by CEOs, the Main Street Investors Coalition. “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people,” said the woman who goes to work every day at an organization self-described as “the investors’s advocate.” She told a room full of investors that they focus too much on “non-investment matters” but was unwilling and unable to come up with specific examples. She only referred to an “amorphous and shifting set of virtue markers,” which those who actually invest in the stock market might consider an “evolving recognition of risk factors.” She called the IOSCO statement on ESG “objectionable.” But she presented no data of any kind to support her implication that shareholder concerns about ESG are based on anything other than risk and return.