August - September 2004

IPF Protecting Investments by Keeping the Heat on Corporate America

During the last few years, thousands of employees of corporations such as Adelphia and Enron lost their jobs because of their bosses’ greed and corruption. All Americans saw their pensions threatened by corporate misdeeds that caused share prices to collapse and sharp fluctuations in the stock market.

The financial stability of all pension funds is linked to the performance of the stock market. BAC members therefore, through their pension investments, have a direct interest in the health of American corporations.

The International Pension Fund’s (IPF) trustees are among those leading the charge to make sure that corporations play by the rules and stay responsive to shareholders. This is being done by actively supporting regulations that will require corporations to make more of their financial information available to investors, and by pushing for changes in corporate board structures to make them more accountable to investors. As an investor, IPF is allowed to make shareholder proposals on these issues at the companies in which the fund invests – and it’s doing just that.

BAC Proxy Victories
This year, IPF reform proposals won majority support at a number of companies. As a result of these reform proposals, Albertson’s, Home Depot, and Marathon Oil are now required to accept common-sense limitations on executive severance pay, or “golden parachutes.” At VF Corporation, an IPF proposal shot down the company’s “poison pill” that had been used to protect ineffective, high-paid executives. And at a number of other companies, BAC proposals prompted corporate executives to talk to IPF about its concerns.

IPF will continue to use its status as an investor to vote proxies and offer shareholder proposals to increase corporate accountability in the upcoming months and years. But IPF needs your help. If there’s a company that you believe should be put on our “watch list,” let your local business manager know. “BAC and our funds are dedicated to making sure that all the companies in which we’re invested play by the rules,” says IPF Trustee and BAC Secretary-Treasurer James Boland.