CalPERS Seeks Meetings With ‘Under-Performers’
The California Public Employees Retirement System on Thursday named nine companies as targets during this spring’s annual meeting season because their stocks have not performed well.
CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund and long a leader in shareholder activism, said it has met with or sought meetings with the boards of each of the companies because they are “economic under-performers.”
They include paper manufacturer Boise Cascade Corp.; retailers Kmart Corp. and Melville Corp.; farm equipment maker Navistar International Corp.; Oryx Energy Co., and U.S. Shoe Corp.
“The meeting we seek is like a wake-up call to the board of directors,” CalPERS General Counsel Richard Koppes said. “Our recourse to filing a shareholder proposal is the buzzer, for the heavy sleepers.”
All nine have agreed to meet with CalPERS, Koppes said, and meetings with independent directors of Navistar, Boise and Melville have already taken place.
CalPERS said it identified the companies “based on their ranking among the 50 poorest relative long-term performers” in the pension fund’s portfolio of more than 1,200 companies.
As it has for the past several years, CalPERS started its program with a letter to the chairman of each company, asking to meet with the board’s independent directors to discuss performance and shareholder value.
If such a meeting is denied, the CalPERS letter said, the company would face a proposal from the pension fund at its annual meeting and a possible vote against reelection of the company’s directors.
CalPERS said its previous efforts to spur better performance and higher stock prices are not yet fully resolved at four of the nine companies: Boise Cascade; First Mississippi Corp., a diversified chemical and minerals producer; Navistar, and U.S. Shoe.
The other companies are Jostens Inc., a maker of class rings, yearbooks, educational software school mementos and other products, and Zurn Industries Inc., which makes power plants and water systems.
