The End of Unified Stewardship and the Rise of Fragmented Governance

By Chen Wang February 6, 2026 by renholding

For over a decade, the narrative of corporate governance was focused on the concentration of power. The “Big Three”asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – along with the two dominant proxy advisers, ISS and Glass Lewis, were seen …

The Proxy Voting Choice Revolution

By Alon Brav, Tao Li, Dorothy S. Lund and Zikui Pan October 7, 2025 by renholding

A corporate governance revolution is underway. The conventional depiction of the U.S. capital markets has focused on the presence of large institutional shareholders and their substantial influence over the economy. But in the past two years, in response to political …

Wachtell Lipton Discusses Shift in “Big Three” Approach to Stewardship

By David A. Katz, Elina Tetelbaum and Loren Braswell September 4, 2025 by renholding

Robust shareholder engagement continues to be a critical component of corporate governance, as well as a key element of shareholder activism preparedness. Proactively maintaining a dialogue with the company’s largest shareholders allows the company to establish credibility, lay out its …

Are the Big Three Asset Managers Beneficial Stewards or Corporate Overlords?

By Ruth V. Aguilera, Kurt A. Desender and Mónica LópezPuertas-Lamy August 6, 2024 by renholding

In the corporate governance landscape, the influence of passive index funds and common ownership has become a focus of scholarly and public debate. As the largest asset management firms in the world, the Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street …

The Role of Controlling Shareholders Is Missing from the Debate over Short-Termism

By Tom Vos August 7, 2023 by renholding

The debate over short-term thinking at corporations has so far focused largely on companies in the U.S. and the UK. The fact that controlling shareholders are less common in those countries than in many others may explain why the extensive …

Giant Asset Managers, the Big Three, and Index Investing

By Dorothy S. Lund and Adriana Z. Robertson April 13, 2023 by renholding

Within the world of corporate governance, there has hardly been a more important recent development than the rise of the Big Three asset managers — Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors, and BlackRock. Due to the popularity of index funds and …

The Corporate Governance Cartel

By Danielle Chaim January 31, 2023 by renholding

In recent years, major institutional investors in the U.S. have combined their efforts on environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) matters. Large institutional investors now vote in lockstep on a variety of corporate issues, jointly lead governance initiatives, and often adopt …

SEC Investment Management Chief Speaks on Regulation Outside the U.S.

By William A. Birdthistle November 15, 2022 by renholding

Good morning. Thank you, Mark, for your kind invitation to speak with you all today – and congratulations on the 25^th anniversary of this conference. I am deeply honored to be giving the Scott Friestad Memorial Keynote address, particularly

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Asset Managers as Regulators

By Dorothy S. Lund June 16, 2022 by renholding

The corporation’s role in society is in flux. Previous generations saw government as an important bulwark against corporate harm. Today, by contrast, corporate America is thought to be a solution to government dysfunction around issues like inequality and the environment. …

Do Investors Prefer Women CEOs at Firms Targeted by Activists?

By Scott C. Jackson, Chris Agoglia and Dave Piercey April 22, 2022 by renholding

Shareholder activism is playing a larger role than ever in companies’ decisions about their operations and reporting, with over 4,600 firms targeted worldwide from 2013 to 2018. Shareholder activists can have several motives for going after a company, from trying …

Wachtell Lipton on Dealing with Activist Hedge Funds and Other Activist Investors

By Martin Lipton, Steven A. Rosenblum, Karessa L. Cain, Sabastian V. Niles and Anna Dimitrijević October 13, 2021 by renholding

Despite a short dip at the outset of the pandemic, activism has rebounded and now continues at an ever-growing intensity. As we have previously noted, regardless of industry, size or performance, no company should consider itself immune from activism. No …

Common Ownership and the Decline of the American Worker

By Zohar Goshen and Doron Levit June 1, 2021 by renholding

American workers are more productive than ever, but they take home the same pay they did 40 years ago. While firms have enjoyed blockbuster profits—and the U.S. gross domestic product has tripled—most American households have not shared in this increasing …

SEC Commissioner Speaks at Asset Management Advisory Committee Meeting

By Hester M. Peirce March 22, 2021 by renholding

Good morning to you all and thank you Ed [Bernard]. It is always a pleasure to welcome the hard working volunteers of AMAC back to the Commission. I also want to thank Sarah ten Siethoff and the staff of the

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Corporate Governance in the Presence of Active and Passive Delegated Investment

By Adrian Aycan Corum, Andrey Malenko and Nadya Malenko October 9, 2020 by renholding

Institutional ownership has grown tremendously over recent decades, rising to more than 70 percent of U.S. public firms. The composition of institutional ownership has also changed, with a remarkable growth in passive funds: The fraction of equity mutual fund assets …

The Politics of Institutional Shareholder Voting: Transparency Before Reform

By Isabel Verkes August 13, 2020 by renholding

On July 22, the SEC finalized a sweeping rule change to enhance the transparency around the role of proxy advisers. This follows an earlier proposal to reform the process for including shareholder proposals in a company’s proxy statement.^[1] These …

If Not the Index Funds, Then Who?

By Nathan Atkinson August 15, 2019 by renholding

In recent years, large asset managers have reached incredible sizes, managing trillions of dollars of assets on behalf of tens of millions of clients. The largest three – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – taken together (the “Big Three”), vote …

SEC Chairman Clayton Speaks to Investor Advisory Committee

By Jay Clayton July 29, 2019 by renholding

Thank you, Anne [Sheehan]. Good morning everyone, and I want to extend a special welcome to our new commissioner, Allison Lee.

I am interested in today’s discussion. I understand the Committee first will be talking about the SEC approach to

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The Effect of Common Ownership on Profits: Evidence from the U.S. Banking Industry

By Serafin Grundl and Jacob Gramlich December 21, 2018 by renholding

In recent years, large asset managers and other institutional investors have come to own increasingly large shares of firms that are competitors. For instance, BlackRock owns shares of both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. Such common ownership is prevalent …

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