Posted: 9/19/2007 5:43:03 AM EDT
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So, for those of you with investments, do you take an interest in them? I don't mean just watching the ticker symbol, I mean do you know who is on the board? Do you fill out the proxy cards when they're mailed to you for shareholder meetings? Have you ever been to a shareholder meeting? (I hear they have great food). I just started a part time job at night, calling existing shareholders, mostly mutual funds, asking them to vote by proxy for the shareholder meeting. I find it amazing how many people have NO IDEA that they even hold shares in a fund, let alone want to vote, or care to vote. 80 % of the people hang up on me immediately, before they even know who I am or why I'm calling. The fund hires my company to call the shareholders, mostly because they sent out the proposals with the proxy card, and haven't received enough votes to hold the meeting. So, to avoid adjournment, they spend a ton of money to have my company call them. So, what say you? Do you take an active interest? If I called you would you hang up on me? Just curious. And these aren't people with 10 or 20 shares. These are people with 10's of thousands of shares. Boggles my mind. |
| My investment house said to vote or not. It's not like 5 shares or even 500 would greatly affect the outcome of a corporation that has eleventy billion shares outstanding. Some of the big institutional investors are voting multi millions of shares. However, it does seem like they are starting to take shareholder proposals more seriously. |
Yes, but if everyone felt that "my vote won't count" then noone would vote. It's just like the presidential election. You can't complain if you didn't vote. I even have people asking ME how their fund is doing. You don't know??? And again, the people I'm calling have ALOT of shares. Alot of people also think their broker is responsible for that. Your broker may or may not help you CHOOSE the fund, but only the shareholder may vote those shares. |
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I just get them all the time. As I said, my few shares don't do a thing when eleventy billion are voted on by the big funds. I used to vote, never looked up the results. Hell, the lowest VP of the company will blow my share vote off the planet earth. If they're voting themselves a raise, do you seriously think my 20 shares are going to make any kind of impression? I'll bet all the Enron shares owned by single individuals wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference on the scumbags running the company, they probably had enough to outvote all the little shareholders. Thats why they spend so much time on the Wall Steet crowd. As for going to a meeting, what I own would take me to Delaware, California, New York and who knows how many more places. And even if I don't vote, I can still bitch. Just by selling. |