Selfish Exxon shareholders vote down climate change report...

[Joanne98]

Exxon shareholder resolutions short of majority

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Exxon Mobil (XOM 69.38, -0.43, -0.62%) shareholders failed to pass any of the 11 items added by holders of commons stock at the Irving, Texas corporation's annual meeting. A proposal to allow shareholders to call special board meetings drew the most "yes" votes, with 40.8% approving the measure. A resolution requesting a climate change report by descendents of John D. Rockefeller drew about 10% yes votes. About 4 billion shares were voted at the meeting.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exxon-shareholder-resolutions-short-of-majority?siteid=yhoof2

[sharp_stick]

1. Keep two things in mind about this

Most of the "shareholders" are large organizations with tens of thousands to millions of shares. One share one vote so they have most, pretty damned near all, of the clout.

On top of that it's written in the shareholder agreement that failure to vote counts as a single vote per share in favor of the boards recommendations. This means that most small shareholders vote in favor of the board because very few bother to send in the ballot or vote online. Most never even open the letters they get regarding the annual meetings.

I'm amazed that a shareholder proposal ever gets approved and they never get approved unless the institutional assholes holding the vast majority of the shares agree to it. This is also the main reason (IMO) that mergers and acquisitions are so often rubber stamped. Easy money for the institutional investors.