A coalition of consumers and investors says it is focusing its efforts on getting Vanguard to join in the efforts of shareholder activists.
At the start of shareholder meeting season, the coalition, led by U.S. PIRG, announced it is intensifying pressure on Vanguard to vote for resolutions at 99 companies to get them to disclose political spending.
Proxy season for the 99 actually started about two weeks ago, when the resolutions received 32 percent of the vote at Disney and 40 percent at Emerson Electric, and ends in June with Google and Walmart.
The campaign can win without winning the vote at a single company, claimed Tim Smith, a consultant to the coalition and director of ESG shareowner engagement at Walden Asset Management in Boston.
“When resolutions are presented and withdrawn or get from 20 percent to 40 percent of the vote, it often opens the door for ongoing dialogue between the company and the resolution’s sponsor, said Smith, whose firm is a unit of Boston Trust, which manages $2.5 billion.
The coalition represents 98 consumer groups ranging from MoveOn to Common Cause to the League of Women Voters and a variety of unions.
A handful of institutional investors in the effort is led by Domini Social Investments which is considered one of the investing community’s founders of the ESG movement.
The Council of Institutional Investors is also participating.
U.S. PIRG’s campaign has garnered more than 65,000 emails.
The campaign’s leader, Emma Boorboor, said the group is targeting Vanguard because it is the largest overseer of retirement assets in America.