Say-on-Pay Votes: New Resources Make It Easy to Keep Score

The Semler Brossy compensation consulting firm is publishing a very useful resource for those of us who want to “keep score” on the results of Say-on-Pay votes in 2012. “2012 Say on Pay Results” is a weekly publication of the cumulative results of Say-on-Pay shareholder advisory votes at Russell 3000 public companies. The most recent report includes the following stats:

• The majority of companies continue to pass Say-on-Pay in 2012 with substantial shareholder support. So far, 71% of these companies have passed with over 90% support.
• The report analyzes how vote results have changed in 2012. Companies that were below 70% in 2012 have generally received increased vote support in 2012. So far, all companies that failed in 2011 have passed in 2012.
• ISS has recommended an “against” vote at 25 of these companies (16%) in 2012, compared to 12% in 2011. On average, shareholder support was 27% lower at companies with an ISS “against” recommendation.
• So far, two companies have failed to get a majority positive Say-on-Pay vote: Actuant Corp. and International Game Technology. The Semler Brossy report provides data such as the 1-year, 3-year and 5-year total shareholder return (TSR) levels for these companies.
• In “Vote of the Week”, the report analyzes a particular (high profile) Say-on-Pay vote. The March 28 report analyzes the Disney vote and the possible reasons they got a 57% positive vote, a decrease of 20% from their 2011 result.

I recommend bookmarking the URL: http://www.semlerbrossy.com/sayonpay. The most recent weekly Semler Brossy PDF report will pop up, including the most up-to-date statistics throughout proxy season.

Another good resource for analyzing early results is this report by Towers Watson. In the last section, this report includes a discussion of the companies that have done supplemental proxy filings, generally to counter points raised by ISS or other proxy advisory firms. Over 100 companies filed such additional soliciting materials last year, and Towers Watson reports that over 10 companies have used such filings this year. The report also analyzes the impact of an ISS “for” or “against” recommendation on Say-on-Pay votes.

Thanks to Broc Romanek in his Advisors Blog on CompensationStandards.com (subscription site) for pointing out these resources.