by Cydney Posner
As reported in thecorporatecounsel.net blog, Broadridge has released its statistics for this past proxy season (proxy statements for shareholder meetings mailed between March 1, 2014 and June 14, 2014). As reported by Broadridge, some of the trends include the following:
- A record high of over 66% of all physical mailings were eliminated, primarily as a result of Broadridge’s specialized account processing for brokers and banks (51% of “total suppressions” v 49% last year) and internet delivery (40% v. 41% last year), with savings estimated at almost $904 million.
- Internet delivery reached an all-time high of over 52 million positions.
- Average quorum percentage rose to 85.7% (compared to 84.3% last year), with broker votes and total votes cast with instruction also increasing from last season’s numbers.
- Of the shares voted through Broadridge, 95% were voted electronically through ProxyEdge (Broadridge’s communications and voting platform for institutional shareholders), ProxyVote.com (Broadridge’s internet platform for retail holders) and Broadridge’s telephone response system, with twice as many shares voted through proxyvote.com (27 billion shares) as were voted by paper vote instruction form (13 billion shares).
- As of June 15, over 1.5 million positions were voted by mobile proxyvote.com, a 70% increase over the same period last year.
