Replies to post #55769 on Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[jakedogman1]

Did you not read the proxy? The BOD has determined that the current structure is in the best interest of shareholders. How many calls/emails has mgmt received saying the current structure is good? My bet is zero. How many calls/emails asking for change? I bet many.

From the proxy

The Board works collectively as a unit, without one designated leader. As such, we do not currently have a Chairman of the Board. One of our directors is Mr. King, who is also our President and Chief Executive Officer. The Board has determined that its current structure is in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders. We believe the independent nature of the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee, and the Nominating Committee, as well as the practice of the independent directors regularly meeting in executive session without Mr. King and the other members of the Company’s management present, ensures that the Board maintains a level of independent oversight of management that is appropriate for the Company. Further, this structure ensures a greater role for the independent directors in the oversight of the Company and active participation of the independent directors in setting agendas and establishing Board priorities and procedures. The Board will review from time to time the appropriateness of its leadership structure and implement any changes it may deem necessary.

[swg_tdr]

Frustrated, YOU MUST BE JOKING "governance"?

not until BoD is replaced, but read this ... and note that some one here had posted the $75M market cap exception already

have a nice day,
NHwild

from NYT (the "liberal paper")

August 27, 2010
Their Investors’ Voice

The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules this week to make it easier for shareholders to nominate directors to corporate boards. For decades, business lobbyists blocked the agency’s efforts to give investors a bigger say in corporate leadership.

Pliant boards fostered the financial crisis by approving excessive executive pay and poor risk-management policies; they have also been implicated in ethical lapses and safety violations at the heart of many corporate scandals. The new S.E.C. rules are a win for investors and the economy — but they may not be enough.

Under the rules, shareholders who collectively own 3 percent of a company’s stock for at least three years will be allowed to add their nominees’ names to the company’s annual proxy ballot. That is an improvement over current practice, which imposes expensive and cumbersome procedures on investors who want to propose new directors.

The 3 percent, three-year hurdle is substantial and generally tougher than the S.E.C.’s original proposal. It will still take an enormous effort and an extraordinary degree of cooperation among big investors, like pension funds and mutual funds, to get a nominee on the ballot.

More disturbing, smaller companies — those worth less than $75 million — will be exempt from the new rules for three years. The reprieve is presumably intended to give them time to learn from bigger companies about managing costs and other aspects of the new rules. But three years is too long for shareholders in smaller companies to wait to have a say. Worse, there is a very real danger that a temporary exemption would become permanent, undermining the principle that fundamental shareholder rights should apply across the board.

In announcing the reforms, the S.E.C. chairwoman, Mary Schapiro, who fought for the changes, argued that fairness and accountability demanded that long-term, significant shareholders have a way to nominate candidates to the boards of companies they own. It is now her duty to monitor the rules to ensure that they do indeed result in a greater voice for shareholders and, if not, to keep fighting.