Annual meetings going on line. (Business Briefs).If conferences and seminars can be held strictly on line, what about a corporation's annual meeting? The savings in logistics -- space rental, mailings, security, executive travel, etc. -- are alluring. One company in the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the arena, Shareholder.com, is promoting an online presentation suite that enables public companies to transform the annual meeting into "an accessible and engaging interactive experience for investors and analysts." The suite includes an archived interactive video Webcast, dynamic annual report and proxy materials Proxy Materials Documents regulated by the Securities & Exchange Commission in which a public company outlines its methods and procedures. These documents are used to inform shareholders and solicit votes for corporate decisions, such as the election of directors and other . Consistent with recent SEC guidelines guidelines, n.pl a set of standards, criteria, or specifications to be used or followed in the performance of certain tasks. regarding disclosure and transparency (1) The quality of being able to see through a material. The terms transparency and translucency are often used synonymously; however, transparent would technically mean "seeing through clear glass," while translucent would mean "seeing through frosted glass." See alpha blending. , the suite provides search and navigation features for all annual meetings, annual reports and proxy content. Examples of all these services are available by clicking on www.shareholder.com. Clearly, Webcasting opens an annual meeting to non-attending shareholders and the public, allowing for questions from people anywhere in the world. Additionally, by archiving the event on the Web, it becomes a shareholder communications tool throughout the year rather than a single event. Shareholder.com cites Walgreen Co., which used its Web suite in January to Webcast its annual meeting. For those who might consider breaking with tradition, the company says its standalone stand·a·lone adj. Self-contained and usually independently operating: a standalone computer terminal. price for an archived annual meeting video Webcast with accompanying slides, speaker biographies, news releases and other material is $3,450. Shareholder.com also provides live annual meeting video Webcasts starting at $12,000. In a related development, Fair Disclosure Financial Network (FDfn) has expanded its Webcasts of public companies' earnings calls. Boston-based FDfn says that starting this quarter, it will boost its audio coverage to 4,000 such calls, distributing them on its network of portal partners such as Bloomberg Bloomberg A major global provider of 24-hour financial news and information including real-time and historic price data, financials data, trading news and analyst coverage, as well as general news and sports. .com and Zacks.com. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion