Reading Proxies for Fun and Profit
Glass Lewis also hopes to sell its advice to small investors. The firm is pushing to create an exchange-traded fund or mutual fund that would allow individuals to bet on the index. In addition, staff members are brainstorming ways to help small investors--who typically throw away proxies--vote their shares.
Some in the investment world worry that getting so big so fast has forced Glass Lewis to become more conservative. Glass Lewis recently backed the election of John Pepper to Disney's board, even though Pepper served on Xerox's auditing committee during the period that the company goosed its earnings using techniques the SEC said were improper. (Xerox settled the charges.)
But Taxin, noting that his company is now being criticized for both being too tough and not tough enough, figures they've struck just the right balance. "If you are seen as too extreme in either direction, you can marginalize yourself." For now, that fate seems unlikely for the budding adviser to the world's investors.
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