footnoted.org: Welcome to North Dakota!
Delaware is getting some competition from a seemingly unlikely place: North Dakota, which enacted what is widely considered to be a shareholder friendly law in 2007, called the North Dakota Publicly Traded Corporations Act. According to this article in the WSJ back in December, the new law makes it easier for shareholders to nominate their own slate of board members and vote on things like executive pay.
…Just this past Friday, shareholders at Southwest Airlines (LUV) proposed reincorporating that company in North Dakota to take advantage of the new rules, according to Southwest’s proxy. Other companies being targeted include Exxon Mobil (XOM), Lowes (LOW), and Marsh & McLennan (MMC), Amgen (AMGN), Sempra Energy (SRE) and footnoted regular, Qwest Communications (Q). That’s in addition to the ones cited in the WSJ article: Oshkosh Corp. (OSK), Hain Celestial (HAIN), Whole Foods (WFMI), and PG&E (PCG). Longtime shareholder activist John Chevedden has either introduced the proposals directly, as he did at Southwest and two other companies, or is involved with other groups that have introduced the proposals at the companies this proxy season.
