The Shareholder Forum

TM

Forum Home Page

How to Initiate

a

Forum Program

  

 

Initiating a Forum Program

            The Shareholder Forum is planning to make its programs openly accessible, so that any investor or corporate manager who wants to make use of Forum processes to address an issue will be able to do so, fairly and equally.

            We’re starting now with the introduction of a simple process that can be used by investors, corporate managers, or professionals to initiate the definition of an issue and determine its importance to a company’s investors.  This process is intended as a first step, allowing an initiator’s private exploration of what may be relevant to investor decisions, without any commitments to proceed with public phases of a Forum program.  The cost of the initial issue definition process has been set at a flat rate that should not be a barrier to any publicly traded company or fund manager.[1]

            Your suggestions will be welcomed to guide our development of the Forum's processes to address your particular interests, and also to more broadly serve

  investors in their research and analysis of corporate valuation and voting decisions;

  corporate managers in their communications to understand and respond to investor interests; and

all decision-makers in their understanding of marketplace practices supporting the public interest in effective enterprise competition and capital allocation.

For more information about the Forum’s process for confidential definition of an issue, you can send an email to inquiry@shareholderforum.com.  Whether you provide specific details or just describe your interest in general terms, whatever you say will be considered private according to the Forum’s standard rules: neither your identity nor anything you state will be disclosed without your explicit permission.

Anyone interested in the more general development of Forum policies and organizational plans is also encouraged to offer advice.  Responding to both marketplace and regulatory interest in expanded applications of Forum programs will require converting from volunteer to professional management, as well as oversight controls that assure the integrity of Forum processes.[2]  The combination of operational reliability and public responsibility will require creatively careful design, and we’ll appreciate your help to get it right.

           GL – 7/7/08

 

Gary Lutin

Lutin & Company

575 Madison Avenue, 10th Floor

New York, New York 10022

Tel: 212-605-0335

Email: gl@shareholderforum.com
 


[1] For non-professional investors who cannot financially justify leadership of a program, the Forum may consider arranging sponsorship support if the suggested issue has significance to public interests.

 

 

 

Inquiries, requests to be included in email distribution lists, and suggestions of new Forum subjects may be addressed to inquiry@shareholderforum.com.

It is the policy of Forum programs to be open to all shareholders of a subject company and to any fiduciaries or professionals concerned with their decisions, according to the Forum’s stated "Conditions of Participation." In all cases, each participant is expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, and participation is considered private unless the party specifically authorizes identification.

The information provided to Forum participants is intended for their private reference, and permission has not been granted for the republishing of any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web site is the responsibility of Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.