Sky Blog
In the past few years, investors have begun to embrace the reality that academics have been championing for decades—that a broad-based passive indexing strategy is superior to picking individual stocks or actively managed mutual funds. As a result, millions of …
The Big Three passive fund managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard) have roughly quadrupled their collective ownership stake in S&P 500 companies over the past two decades (Hirst and Bebchuk, 2019). This enormous increase in ownership by passively …
Shareholder action is restricted to a binary choice, a decision that requires a “yes” or a “no.” For example, shareholders may be asked whether or not to participate in a tender offer, redeem SPAC shares, exercise preemptive rights, or approve …
The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in In re Appraisal of Panera Bread Company,[1] following a six-day trial, in a 130-page decision issued on January 31, 2020, that the petitioners received more than fair value for each share …
The popularity of index funds, which automatically track an index of stocks, is continuing to grow in the U.S, and, albeit less intensely, in the EU. Due to the high concentration of the index funds industry, the exponential rise of …
One of the hottest antitrust topics of late has been institutional investors’ “common ownership” of minority stakes in competing firms. Writing in the Harvard Law Review, Einer Elhauge proclaimed that “[a]n economic blockbuster has recently been exposed”—namely, “[a] small …
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) on May 1, 2014 announced a settlement (Settlement) with the New York Stock Exchange LLC and certain of its affiliates (collectively, the NYSE), addressing a variety of practices – including informational disparities …
The amount of assets that passive (index) funds have under management has grown significantly in recent decades. Domestic passive funds and ETFs now manage more than half of all assets under management (AUM) of domestic equity mutual funds and ETFs, …
Our examination of the votes cast by 155 mutual funds on over 6 million corporate election items during 2004-2017 led us to a surprising conclusion: We found that Institutional Shareholder Services’ (ISS) proxy advice did not lead funds to vote …
Despite long-standing efforts to understand the proxy advice market, there is no way to identify the firms that supply specific investors with proxy advice, making claims about market shares conjectural at best. Nevertheless, it is widely believed that ISS and …
This post lays out a new approach to shareholder voting designed to increase the voting power of long-term committed shareholders: adding votes to shares based on both long holding periods and high concentrations. Called quality voting, the approach would …
Institutional ownership of companies has grown to the point that institutions today own approximately 80 percent of the market value of U.S. stocks.[1] Recent academic research explores this rising ownership concentration and debates the growing importance of “passive” or “index” …
The Corporate Practice Commentator is pleased to announce the results of its twenty-fifth annual poll to select the ten best corporate and securities articles. Teachers in corporate and securities law were asked to select the best corporate and securities articles
Proponents of shareholder voting argue that restricting it would reduce the ability of shareholders to hold management accountable. The implication of this argument is that mandating equal voting rights for all shares will benefit shareholders. However, the evidence as to …
The heart of the final rule is a shortening of the filing windows for Schedules 13D
On September 27, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced charges against six public company insiders for failing to timely report information about their holdings and transactions in company securities. Five publicly traded companies were also charged with …
The historical trajectory of business entities is a testament to the intricate interplay between societal structures, technological advancements, and economic imperatives. From the rudimentary partnerships of early civilizations to the sophisticated joint-stock corporations of the 17th century, the evolution of …
To some extent, this is another collection of words about an acronym that collects words, in the largely passive and meaningless manner of a lint roller. Elizabeth Pollman recently developed a deft history of the acronym ESG, which stands for …
In a recent paper, we examine the economic impacts of a new Texas law to throw light on whether the often-heated political debate over environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues is empty political rhetoric or a reflection of substantive policy …
Military strategy and takeover strategy share a few things in common. At some point, generals and M&A lawyers each must recognize that the old technology no longer works as it did in the past and can no longer dominate the …