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Evelyn Davis: Unlikely Champion Fights for Shareholders’ Rights
May 16, 2008 8:30 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Diminutive Holocaust survivor Evelyn Y. Davis is known as the “queen of the corporate jungle” for her unflagging struggle to keep executives accountable.
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Hard to miss at a shareholders’ meeting, the small septuagenarian speaks with a heavy Dutch accent and is not one to shy away from the spotlight.
“The eccentric corporate gadfly has tormented CEOs at annual shareholders meetings, where she dresses them down for excessive pay packages, poor corporate performance—even their girth,” writes USA Today.
Davis, a multimillionaire, owns stock in more than 90 companies and regularly attends their shareholders’ meetings. In an interview with CNBC, Davis expressed frustration with the number of annual meetings that occur on the same dates.
“What’s the matter? You think they’re doing this to keep you from going to all the meetings?” joked interviewer Bill Griffeth.
His assertion may not be far off.
At a New York Times meeting, chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told her, “Evelyn, you have to sit down or you have to leave.”
The St. Petersburg Times said Davis grilled JPMorgan’s chief executive about a salary boost and gave him a “tongue-lashing” about the company’s use of auditing services she considered excessive and expensive.
Some view Davis as a “crackpot” but many of her proposals, such as restricting incoming directors to six years of work, have been adopted by corporations, says USA Today.
Recently, she proposed preventing financial abuses by prohibiting top executives at Goldman Sachs from receiving new stock options.
More than two decades ago, she had her own headstone erected in a Washington cemetery. The stone carries her curriculum vitae and two epitaphs: “Power Is Greater than Love,” reads one; the other, “And I Did Not Get Where I Am by Being Shy.”
“The eccentric corporate gadfly has tormented CEOs at annual shareholders meetings, where she dresses them down for excessive pay packages, poor corporate performance—even their girth,” writes USA Today.
Davis, a multimillionaire, owns stock in more than 90 companies and regularly attends their shareholders’ meetings. In an interview with CNBC, Davis expressed frustration with the number of annual meetings that occur on the same dates.
“What’s the matter? You think they’re doing this to keep you from going to all the meetings?” joked interviewer Bill Griffeth.
His assertion may not be far off.
At a New York Times meeting, chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told her, “Evelyn, you have to sit down or you have to leave.”
The St. Petersburg Times said Davis grilled JPMorgan’s chief executive about a salary boost and gave him a “tongue-lashing” about the company’s use of auditing services she considered excessive and expensive.
Some view Davis as a “crackpot” but many of her proposals, such as restricting incoming directors to six years of work, have been adopted by corporations, says USA Today.
Recently, she proposed preventing financial abuses by prohibiting top executives at Goldman Sachs from receiving new stock options.
More than two decades ago, she had her own headstone erected in a Washington cemetery. The stone carries her curriculum vitae and two epitaphs: “Power Is Greater than Love,” reads one; the other, “And I Did Not Get Where I Am by Being Shy.”
Headline Links: Tough corporate watchdog doubles as philanthropist
In a recent interview with CNBC’s Bill Griffeth, Evelyn Davis discussed some of the issues important to her during the current season of shareholders’ meetings. Davis expressed her disappointment with the current economic situation, particularly the subprime mortgage crisis. She went on to say, “People should learn how to save the money that … should go for mortgages … the women spend it on the beauty shop and the men on the bars.” Highlights and Lowlights, Davis’ annual newsletter critiquing corporate practices, is published from her home in the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.
Source: CNBC
While some view Davis as a “crackpot,” USA Today writes that many of her proposals have been implemented, such as restricting incoming directors to six years of work at a number of corporations. Davis, who owns shares in more than 90 companies and is a multimillionaire, is also an avid philanthropist.
Source: USA Today
Background: The corporate gadfly
In a May 2002 column, Robert Trigaux of the St. Petersburg Times says Davis “is a royal pain in the asset of dozens of Fortune 500 CEOs, who once a year must confront a tongue-lashing by this feisty 72-year-old shareholder activist.” This was the case in 2002 during the annual stockholders meeting for JPMorgan, when Davis interrogated CEO Bill Harrison about his salary, JPMorgan’s business dealings with Enron and its use of auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers. She ended by asking for directions to the airport. “We'll have one of our security people take you,” Harrison said.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
Related Topics: Davis speaks out
Davis and The New York Times
Gawker describes Evelyn Davis at the New York Times annual stockholders’ meeting this year. After Davis complained that her headphones didn’t work, chairman of The New York Times Company Arthur Sulzberger Jr. “looked perturbed but spoke gently to the woman, as one might speak to one's great aunt who is being kept in a sanitarium high in the Swiss Alps.” But during the question and answer period Davis defended Sulzberger from the personal attacks of Morgan Stanley portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry, comparing Elmasry to “Robespierre.”
Source: Gawker
SEC letter opposing voting by proxy
In a letter sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission dated Sept. 25, 2007, Evelyn Davis argues against proxy access for large institutional investors, which, she says, comes at the expense of individual “peasant” shareholders. “This administration and its SEC have been solely catering to large investors and unions because of HUGE contributions CERTAIN members of Congress have been receiving from those special interests,” she writes.
Source: Securities Exchange Commission
Arguing against stock options at Goldman Sachs
On March 7, 2008, Reuters reported that Chairman and Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, was given $100 million in compensation for the 2007 fiscal year. Goldman Sachs indicated that its board wants to reject two shareholder executive compensation proposals. One of them, by Evelyn Davis, “would stop Goldman from awarding new stock options to top executives.” According to Reuters, Davis “has complained about excessive executive pay for decades.”
Source: Portfolio.com
Video & Photography: Davis in action and her future headstone
A YouTube clip shows Evelyn Davis at a May 25, 2007, SEC roundtable discussion about using the Internet to handle shareholder proposals. Davis says, “When you let them use electronics, you know what’s gonna happen? … You will establish a legal way for companies to snoop on everything shareholders do and say on the Internet.” The clip continues in part two.
Source: YouTube
Although Evelyn Davis is still alive, her headstone is already up and displayed on flickr. It includes the words, “Two Divorces—no children,” “Recognized at White House Press Conferences by Several Presidents Since 1978,” and “Power is Greater Than Love. And I Did Not Get Where I Am By Standing In-Line. Nor By Being Shy.”
Source: flickr
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