Transcript
Live from Matt mascar is 5th floor. It's nice up here. It's the ESG Industries. Only weakly woke data podcast, featuring Ari the data Queen. Yay, I'm feeling it for Matt. Yeah. In today's Evergreen. Slug growth called June 7th, 2023, Ultra, nerdy ESG headline. Our alternative democracy in a word from our sponsor. Evergreen slug. Our show today is being sponsored by ESG your ESG Data Solutions, provider. Thanks as gauge. Yeah, you use their data every day I do. Actually. You ready for some fun? Yep. Let's start with some older. Nerdy ESG, headlines, Ultra, nerdy. I'm excited for what this means. There are alternative because only really we care about these things or maybe the maybe we are in the ESG industry, we'll start with stakeholders rule in no particular order. Microsoft will pay 20 million dollars to US Federal Regulators after it was found to have illegally collected data on children who had started Xbox accounts. Wow. Also 20 million dollars, its peanuts, right? Yeah, that's nothing right? And who knew that children were starting Xbox accounts. I didn't know. My kids don't do that. Did they knowingly? Did they know those children or is it children that just lie about their age? Yeah. But who doesn't lie about their age? Right? Yeah I like to Facebook. They let me on. Let's go over to our woke data category. There was a republican Congressional committee yesterday, it's escalating, its campaign against sustainable. Investing. Another Committee in the house in the Congress, the GOP heads of two major house, subcommittees sought to cast, investing That considers factors like climate or human rights as an Insidious attempt to quote rewire the fabric of America and that's nice. Fabric man, it's getting so Warren. Yeah, how about this? Mandy gonna Sakura of the Independent Women's forum. She was a witness for the Republican and her published remark. She said ESG aimed to promote, gender transitions in children. Why the new one? Yes, he Is G? Like, is that a person? Is it a thing? Is that your data? I don't think it's us promoting. Gender, transitions. Why would I care? I mean I'm all for transgender transitions but am I telling someone to do that? I think she says you are democratic, congresswoman, Katie Porter said, I can't believe this is part two of the ESG hearings part. One was actually the stupidest here and I've ever been to And now we're having part two. Please God, let their not be a part 3. yeah, that's kind of exactly how I would feel. Let me just tell you this. I looked up the Independent Women's Forum, even there are even on the Independent Women's Forum. The board is 50% men. So even their men maintain some kind of control. I, I really thought that okay, this organization is going to at least have a majority women on sport. But no, even there, the men kind of maintain power. Oh, moving on to CEOs rule. I have a few headlines and CEOs today, Linda yaccarino, I just like this headline, because it completely misses everything Linda, yaccarino replaces, Elon Musk, as Twitter boss. Does anybody actually believe that? Come on? That's from the BBC. That's What they're telling people. Come on BBC. You can do better than that. Was Monday her first day. See or something. I think it was yes yesterday's, right? Monday or Tuesday. Chris licked we Matt. And I talked a lot about him, this the CEO of CNN, who were apologized to his team to his staff on Monday morning because of his weird trumpy, town hall and beard article about him in the Vanity Fair. I guess he just kind of a weird dude. He's done. He's out. He's oh yeah, 13 months. He was CEO and now he's been fired. They say stepping down but we know that's yeah, yeah, really quick. Yeah, the interim leadership. Team is composed of three people? I've never seen this before, Amy Antilles, Virginia Moseley and Eric Shirley. That's the that. So, their succession plan is clearly non-existent because right, Let's just stick those three people in there. Are they being? Are they gonna be called cosios? Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question. I have we seen three coasters videos. That would be lovely. They're a tripod and finally a CEO death. We don't report CEO deaths a lot, but I wanted to honor this guy, Yvonne menezes the longtime CEO. I don't even know how to say this company named a long time. CEO of Guinness maker Diageo, you know, how to say that company name? No, doggy. Oh, they make Guinness beer. He has passed away. He was 63 years old. Wow, that's young. Yeah, he had too much Guinness jokes. Deborah Deborah crew is taking over. Here's why I highlighted this company highlighted, this story because I actually looked at our data, our board saber metrics data because I was interested about the succession planning, when a CEO dies, this company has an extremely balanced board. Influence wise, let this be a lesson to all boards and companies this CEO was at 16% that was the highest level of influence the lowest was 6%. So, really. Yep. And this is how many companies where the lowest like zero or what they sit on 0 committees and have been nowhere. And I don't even know why they're there. And let me tell you about Guinness and I think the anti-walk probably won't want to be drinking this beer either. The Guinness board is 63% women. That that's a very high number seven out of 11, directors are women and that was with the former CEO. So this is going to change and the new CEO is a woman, Deborah crew. This is a female power. This is this beer was run by female power, the longest. Wow. Yeah, nobody tell the Bud Light Shooters of the US. Yeah, I don't think they drink Guinness anyway. Do they probably scared by that? No, probably two foreign 24. Let's move over to dystopia our last category. Sam Altman. He's the CEO of openai. He says he wants to maintain control of openai and therefore will not take the company public because it would limit his freedom to make decisions. Has you heard of dual class shares? Right, exactly. But here's the weird thing about Samuel and that we talked about before, he owns no equity in the company, none. Right? This is so bizarre and I'm guessing. I'm that, I'm glad you brought that up Arc because that's probably the one of the reasons why he does not want to take it public because he'll have he'll have nothing right? He'll his control will be diminished. His quote, was it kind of scares me. He says, when we develop super intelligence were likely to make some decisions that public market. Investors would view very strangely. Oh, what are they Doing. I said you Sam Altman because I know you're listening. Go public because we hear it freefloat wanna know more about your company and we want to weigh in on your very strange decisions. That's sketchy? Why would he even make that comment? I know. Finally Ari Apple. We talked about this apple had a big announcement. Was it Monday or Tuesday, they unveiled. Their new goggles, their new Monday. Yeah. Monday. I don't even know what they're called. I goggles where they called. Do you even know? It's just augmented reality goggles, it's not virtual reality. So, here's the article. All the buzz words, that Apple avoided in its demo, okay, ready for this. There's six words, they specifically, did not say, and I want to hear your opinions on these, okay? They did not say virtual reality. Ah, see, they're trying to stand out, right? They did not say metaverse. Again. Right, they did not say AI. Very smart for people. Yeah, very smart people at Apple. They did not say headset. Huh. I don't really get that one. They did not say Avatar. And finally, they avoided the word simulation. So they're, they're trying something over there, Apple. They're trying to convince you of something. I think this is actually very smart to leave out all these words. Yeah. And I want to know what they used. I think I'm gonna have to go back in. Watch the event. I did see a headline that the audience grown when they heard the price of the linear headset. The new was it 3,000. What was 3500? Wow, Matt was suggesting that the reports are that, it'll be a flop. I still, I feel convinced maybe because I just think that Tim Cook is smart. I feel convinced that eventually they're gonna get. They're gonna be the ones that get this, right? And the price will keep coming down. I mean, remember when the iPhone came out and there were so expensive for what yeah. What a phone was at the time, right? Right. Absolutely. And and iPads, I remember people groaning about iPads, thought they were. Why would you want to Big phone stupid? Yeah, I don't know, man. I mean I know I'm not getting one, so I'm not getting one. But I still think that I don't think they're gonna be a flop. I think that they go to the Apple store and try him out though. I won't, but you could I think I will. Okay. Those are our headlines are that's it. That's all we got. Okay. Before we get to our alternative democracy wrap up, let's hear the great Paul Hodgson from ESG. Talk about what's he talking about Stark Awards, in stock option increases. I'll let Paul describe it because I'm not gonna Scribe a little Paul talk. Hello there. Paul Hodgson with skates, statistic of the week as promised from last week, we are going to look at increases in stock awards, for CEOs, and in the stock option Awards. So between 2022 and 2023. 64% of companies, reporting had reported, an increase in or a change. In the mean value of their stock awards to the CEO. And that increase was 32.9% over 2022. So, pretty significant increase in that compared to the increases in bonuses and annuals salary that we saw last week and the overall increase from the stock value. Stock award values in 2013 to 2023 was 137.1%. Now 2023 is the reporting year, so we're talking about this school 2022 is when these were being paid out. So that is, so we're looking at 480 of the companies in the sp500 reported so far this year. So pretty substantial increase on average for stock awards So, let's just move over to stock options. This is for the S&P 500, by the way, I'm sorry. I should have made that clear at the beginning and again, 408 companies filing, but only 34.1% of them, reporting an increase in stock option award. And this has a great deal to do with the fact that companies and remuneration committees Etc. Have been moving away from stock options for probably the last 10 years. The stock awards are a little bit more sophisticated or seen as More effective way of tying compensation to Performance in even if its measured as total stuff called return. For example, so companies have been moving gradually away from stock options towards stock awards themselves. Full Value stock wars. Um, so 34.1% only reporting any increase in stock option Awards. But again that the mean the average that was pretty significant 23.2% increase and since 2013 88%, increase over a 2013 values. So we're looking at almost a 9% annual increase annualized, increase for that. So there we have it, simple stuff. So, next week, we're going to look at CEO total compensation median. Valleys and so total compensation for CEOs in the S&P 500 from 2011, through to 2023. So we'll see what what that brings us and then we're going to get down and dirty on CEO perks. So I'll talk to you next week and this is Paul Hodgson signing off with SGH statistic of the week. Thanks a lot, bye-bye. Thank you, Paul. Did you like that? Sorry to learn something. Yeah, no, thank you, Paul. It was great. That was Paul Hodgson from escapes. We have an alternative democracy wrap up, both Ari. And I looked at 8, pretty famous companies. We got some of our thoughts about they. They just had annual meetings, they just voted on a bunch of nonsense. I'll take them in no particular order. Once again are a first Netflix, we've been waiting for many days now, we know that say on pay fail, that Netflix, Netflix refusing to release the press release. Well, how many people voted against it? Ari, it's a big number 70, one percent of shareholders voted against pay at this incredible. That's a big deal. It's still not binding, right? This is yes. Still on. Yeah. This means a lot though because it's just doesn't happen. Often. No, 70, I can't remember a higher number to be on us. We did point out that because of their horrible leadership structure. They basically have three people. They pay. They overpay a CEOs. They have cos and executive chair and founder. Reid Hastings is still there. So they shareholders are right to be pissed off. This is a ridiculous. Moving on meta platforms, had a vote. That's, you know, that's Mark Zuckerberg. We should really, just call it Mark Zuckerberg. The only thing I wanted to point out here, there was pretty boring vote overall, but they did have a shareholder proposal. They all failed, but they did have one called, give each share an equal vote. This is something you just alluded to Ari that if you want to maintain control of your company as a tech company, just have a dual class share system where you're Shares are worth 4000 votes and regular people share with, you know, one vote. But here was what the company said. I say the company. But Mark, here's what Mark Zuckerberg said in response to why shareholders should reject this reject, give each share an equal vote. He said the requested change to our capital structure is unnecessary and is not in the best interest of meta and its shareholders at this time. That's the one that's basically mark. Saying no, I want to keep doing last year. It's not necessary. Take a hike. Did you find anything about my platform? You want to share nothing to see here. Not really everything was pretty boring except you know Sheryl. Sandberg seems to be the Mis Congeniality of the of the group here. What do you mean got? She got the most votes for the least abstained, okay? You know, people like her still for some reason ostensibly. She is the only person that might be a counterbalance to his power. I mean, we always used to call or the actual CEO, right? So but she can't. She's still can't do anything. You're right. She can't do anything. I'm just guessing like why? She gets the most votes? Yeah, she's just she's just well. Like they think anything else when we move on? Oh, and the least favorite shareholder. Proposal was the government takedown requests. That one got no love from shares. Hold it from shareholders whatsoever, that's part of a slew of these are the anti-walk vote that Matt talks about anti ESG vote. And I I want to point out that for the first time ever there's several in today's show, but for the first time ever assure, her proposal has used the word Hunter Biden and its reasoning. So Hunter Biden is now appearing in shareholder. Proposals, it's really crazy. I mean what a bizarre conspiracy theory so bizarre. Oh gosh, let's move on to Media Group. All I can say is that there seems to be a lot of feisty voters at Expedia this year, what's going on? Expedia are they dissatisfied with Expedia? They're what they really seem to say, let them down, I think what they're really pissed off about is pay 43%, voted against the sea on pay, and the people who got hit the hardest were all people on the pay committee. That's Beverly Anderson Craig, Jacobson and Chelsea Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, you know? That's right, so Random, yeah, But they are all the pick of video, okay? That makes sense. That does make sense and I will say that at Netflix. Okay, here's the problem at Netflix is, it's a classified boards and not all directors are up for election every year. Only one paid committee director was up for vote, that was Micaiah, stop nurse, but he had more yes, votes than were against Sam. Hey, 71% were against say on pay, but 80% voted for pay committee chairs. So, who, I mean, he shouldn't be mad at somebody shouldn't, you know, shareholders did not make the connection like the expedia's, right? And this is why we're here a free flow. And this is why we created boards ever metrics because there are people actually making these decisions. It's not just some AI bot, right? Some machine that makes the pay for Netflix Executives. It's people people make these policies. You can vote against the people. Yeah. Moving on to ExxonMobil. I don't have much to say here. It's kind of boring. They lay loved everything, boring. All 12, Sherer proposals failed. I don't know. I got nothing to say here. You guys all 12 directors were elected re-elected or elected by a lot, by a lot. Yeah, over 90%. Including, you know, the activists sleep from a couple years ago. There's still on, right? Well here, yeah. And here's what we're learning, I guess. Is that if profits are up shareholders will like you despite the fact that you might be killing the world, but if profits are up, you know, we're going to vote in your favor. So I guess the ESG conspiracy is failing. Walmart had a vote again. I'm calling. I'm calling this one boring. Yeah, everybody passed in fact, the highest no vote against the director was only 4%. So again, this is another one of these mismatches already 21% of shareholders voted against pay. But they supported. Every director by at least 96% so I I don't get it. I don't get why they don't make that connection to at least we'll tell you. Well, tell you who to blame another cash, call us up. Yeah, exactly. Another huge company that had a shareholder vote was Lowe's. I got nothing here. Another one, the only thing that I took away was that they really don't want the chair of the board and the CEO to be the same person. They don't, they don't about a third voted for that shareholder. Proposal. Okay, well, it could be better. I don't, I just a third because with all these words like barely. Anybody, you know, sets anything a third, it's like, oh yeah. Someone's got a problem with this. I don't know. Is it because the person is it? Because Marvin Ellison is black. Oh, that's a conspiracy. I like that conspiracy? Yeah, I don't get this one. I'll never understand this one. I've been working corporate governance for a long time. If you think really is fiduciary duties and all that, I don't know why you would always want independent chair. How could it hurt, right? How write Pinterest. Another famous company that had a annual vote is Pinterest to people. Still use Pinterest? Are you just about to ask you that? Because I thought people used it for like their wedding inspo and whatever and wasn't the wedding industry down after covid, like who was still pitting anything? Maybe it was house Reno's after that because everybody was into that. The only reason why I know Pinterest is, I think Matt's wife uses it as always talking about Pinterest, okay? You use it a lot. Okay, this one's also boring, but I did want to point this a couple things out. First of all, they had an extraordinary pay ratio. CEO pay ratio the CEOs pay compared to the median workers pay was just about 1,000 to 1. I did the math, CEO Bill ready, Ernst his median workers, pay. Assuming you start working at 9:00 in the morning, right? He earns his median workers pay on the first day of the year 1104 a.m. Before lunch before lunch, he's already earned hit the median where that I find that to be just, honestly, just gross. He could eat a worker before lunch and this isn't even the founder of Pinterest. This is just, this is the CEO. The CEO is a man of Pinterest. I know, right? There's a letdown. I also wanted to point out for Matt's taking case, Matt's listening is that there wasn't anti-wolf proposal for Matt's favorite group of angry white dudes, at the national Center for Public Policy. Research, Matt loves talking about them, they requested an additional reporting on government requests to remove content. Again, Ari another proposal. That mentions Hunter Biden. I love it. My name. Yeah, this one only got point three three percent. Yes. All all these anti-wolf anti-esg shareholder. Proposals are absolute failures. Wait, I'm sorry. Can you remind me again have a shareholder proposal? gets on like, How does it get on the ballot? I guess. Well, here's how I typically works. There's a in the in the proxy statement. They there's a deadline for submitting, these proposals, you have to own a certain amount of shares. You have to follow a bunch of rules SEC. Has a bunch of rules about how you, how you create these. The company usually tries to reject all of them. They argue against all of them, but then the SEC kind of pushes back and and kind of makes the companies include most of them, but that's basically it, you basically have to be a shareholder and you have to have enough money to submit the proposal to put it all together, but that that's it. I mean, we could I think we could do it right? Okay. Maybe the only people that voter for this, the only people that were interested in up putting it on 0.33%. Absolutely, I think you're absolutely correct. Okay. And finally in our show for June 7th 2023, this is business pants. We have one more company for our alternative democracy wrap up and that is what is a oh, amazon.com Amazon. What happened? Amazon, I didn't even look at this one, to be honest, I will tell you this, that Amazon voters are maybe a little bit smarter, say on pay. 32% said no, but also 29% voted against the pay committee chair. So that seems okay, alright, consistent. Yeah, why are you? Yeah, man, I think they are using our data. I will say that they had an incredible. I think this is a record. I think we reported on this. They had 18, share her proposals 18, of course, they all failed. Another one, another one from Matt's favorite National Center for Public Policy research. Another anti ESG anti-wolf. One was, the was The Biggest Loser, one asking for a report on a cost benefit analysis of its diversity, equity and inclusion program, right? Featuring this incredible quote, this quote will make you scratch your head until not only all your dandruff falls out, but you start bleeding, Here's the quote, they used racial Equity calls for potential discrimination by race. What the hell does that mean racial equity? Is racist is what they're saying. Racial Equity is very cause of racism crazy. This is, this is a Reverse Racism thing that people cry about. I think craziness, but I will point this out for all of our listeners. All of our our right wing, we must have a lot of Republican listeners, right? Amazon is clearly gone woke. So now you can't shop at Target. You can't shop at Walmart because all the people think Walmart's woke now and you can't shop at Amazon, because here's the quote to Amazon use against this shareholder. Proposal Amazon said, quote diversity equity and inclusion, are cornerstones of Arkansas. Can you success and critical components of our culture? We believe these values are not only good for business. They are simply write and quote, so they don't benefit analysis, because They think it's alright. Alright so don't even worry about buying shooting Bud Light or buying Bud Light because where are you gonna buy it? You can't go to Target, Walmart or Amazon? You're done. I think you're done buying stuff. What about Dollar General? I really don't like this trailer. That's true. Because the shop there, I guess. Anything else? Sorry, that's it. That's all I got. No, this was nuts. It's not. Wow. And thank you for joining me. I, I don't think we need that. We could just use Ari. You're already at his desk, right? Yeah. I like you telling me the news, this is way better than me, looking at the news. All right, that's it. That's the show. Tune in tomorrow. Where what? We're gonna we're gonna play. What are we doing tomorrow? Do you know what we're doing tomorrow? I have no idea. We're doing more. Oh, you know what, I might be talking to Jesse our money whisper Jesse started a new social media campaign, using our data to help her buy stuff. Essentially she's looking at buying tampons this week and she's using our data, our board saber metrics data to help her to choose, which is the best product and then incredible. I know she went to Target yesterday for this reason so she can go there, you know. Yeah. So maybe we'll talk to Justin tomorrow. All right, bye.