Say-on-Pay.com’s Say on Pay Frequency Tracking page has been updated to reflect proxies filed through the end of 2010.
Triennial SWOP still remains the frequency recommended by a majority of the companies that have filed their proxies so far. Several well-known companies this week filed proxies and indicated their preference for the say on pay vote frequencies, i.e., Annual: Deere & Company, Triennial: TFS Financial Corporation and Warner Music Group.
Here are the current stats:
- Annual: 34(28.3%)
- Biennial: 9 (7.5%)
- Triennial: 67 (55.9%)
- No recommendation: 10 (8.3%)
Total companies tracked: 120
So even though recent surveys by both Towers Watson and TheCorporateCounsel.net indicated that surveyed companies would be more likely to recommend an annual vote frequency, that has still not yet come across in the actual vote frequency recommendations that have been filed by companies. Of course, the sample sizes in both cases (the surveys and companies that have filed so far) are small, so it still might change once more companies get their proxies filed. However, I think this is one of those times that companies might want to test that waters with a triennial vote frequency recommendation, give their best arguments as to why that makes sense, discuss this with their key shareholders and then sit back and see how the coting turns out. It just might turn out that shareholders will vote strongly in favor of an annual vote frequency in any event. This would then present companies with a bit of a dilemma — adopt the frequency endorsed by a plurality of shareholders or go with what the company had originally recommended. My guess is that this situation will be faced by a number of companies and we’ll have to wait to see how the majority of such companies deal with this issue.