Institutional Investor: Institutional Investors Demand Disclosure on Companies’ Political Spending

Institutional Investor recently published an article about the growing number of investors who are pressing companies to disclose their political spending and Trillium’s shareholder proposals which requests that companies refrain from spending money from the corporate treasury for political purpose.

Katie Gilbert writes, “Some investors say that requiring disclosure may not go far enough; companies need to altogether exit from political spending that’s funded straight out of the corporate treasury, they insist. This proxy season, socially responsible investment firm Trillium Asset Management filed the first shareholder proposal by an institutional investor that asks a company to completely refrain from channeling funds from the corporate treasury to political ends. The targeted company was Bank of America.

‘We think money coming from the corporate treasury is the riskiest to play around with,’ says Shelley Alpern, director of shareholder advocacy at Trillium. ‘It’s the most directly tied to the company image.’”

You can read the complete article here.