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We’re excited and honored to share some fantastic news! NorthStar Asset Management has been recognized as one of CNBC’s FA 100 for 2023!
Being listed among the top financial advisory firms in the nation is a testament to the incredible dedication of our team, our relentless pursuit of excellence, and our commitment to delivering outstanding financial solutions to our clients while creating positive social impact.
Since our inception in 1990, NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. believes that joint action drives lasting change. Recently, our team collaborated on a response to a piece by Rob Henderson in The New York Times. Henderson’s piece argued that progressive activism is a luxury for the elite.
NorthStar is pleased to share that we have published our 2023-2024 Social Change & Activism Report!
We approach activism and advocacy from the perspective of our five pillars: Racial Justice and Gender Equity, Environmental Justice, Economic Equality, Human Rights, and Corporate Governance.
We’re excited and honored to share some fantastic news! NorthStar Asset Management has been recognized as one of CNBC’s FA 100 for 2023!
Being listed among the top financial advisory firms in the nation is a testament to the incredible dedication of our team, our relentless pursuit of excellence, and our commitment to delivering outstanding financial solutions to our clients while creating positive social impact.
NorthStar is pleased to announce the publication of our newest piece of thought leadership, The Investor Case for Fair Chance Employment. This report builds upon our 2018 paper on prison labor, and aims to detail our research on fair chance employment along with our related strategy on company engagement. In laying out our argument for fair chance employment as a solution to certain company and economy-wide problems, we urge other shareholders to support our work.
In honor of Second Chance Month, NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. (“NorthStar”)[1] of Boston as shareholders of Xylem Inc. (“Xylem”) common stock announces a successful engagement with Xylem company management codifying a new commitment to establish a fair chance employment program in 2023.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Despite Legal Challenge, Shareholders Will Vote on Company’s Board Diversity Efforts Boston, MA (March 22, 2022) – Late last month, NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. (“NorthStar”) of Boston prevailed against a legal challenge by Milwaukee-based...
Mari Schwartzer, NorthStar’s Director of Shareholder Activism and Engagement, was featured on a podcast this week related to our activism work on prison labor. Mari was joined by Sancia Dalley of RFK Human Rights to discuss the effects of the U.S.’s mass incarceration...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Boston, MA (May 19, 2021) – At the late April shareholder meeting of Badger Meter, Inc., a supermajority – 85% -- of Badger Meter shareholders voted in favor of a shareholder proposal by NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. related to Badger Meter’s...
At the May 27th annual meeting of shareholders, Facebook shareholders will vote on a proposal that asks CEO Mark Zuckerberg eliminate his oversized control of the company and create a governance structure that would allow all shareholders one vote per share.
Due to successful negotiations from a shareholder proposal filed by NorthStar, Costco has become the first U.S. corporation to commit to public reporting on the prison labor in its supply chain.
At The Home Depot’s annual shareholder meeting on May 23rd, approximately 30% of shareholders voted in favor of a shareholder proposal that asked for disclosure of prison labor in the company’s supply chain.
Click through to watch a Bloomberg interview of NorthStar’s CEO Julie Goodridge regarding NorthStar’s pending shareholder proposal at Facebook that seeks equal voting for all shareholders.
Julie Goodridge, NorthStar’s founder and CEO, will be honored this June as one of YW Boston’s 2019 Academy of Women Achievers Awardees. Read more here.
At the recent annual meeting of shareholders for Costco, nearly 29% of shareholders voted in favor of a NorthStar shareholder proposal related to prison labor.
NorthStar’s CEO Julie Goodridge recently appeared on CNBC to discuss the most recent news of the tech giant’s “mismanagement of user data.” Click through to watch the video.
Coupled with Julie's appearance on CNBC, NorthStar's CEO joins other investors "sounding off" about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg after a series of missteps continue to push the stock price lower. Through its shareholder proposals, NorthStar pushes Facebook to improve...
On November 19, 2018 NorthStar’s CEO Julie Goodridge was invited to speak on Bloomberg TV as well as CNBC related governance issues at Facebook. Click through for links to both videos.
NorthStar’s CEO, Julie Goodridge, was recently interviewed by a Windy City Times reporter about Julie’s career and passion for making social change.
NorthStar’s extensive work on understanding and mapping prison labor in the corporate supply chain of U.S. companies was featured in the most recent issue of Green American Magazine, the quarterly print publication of Green America. NorthStar has been a longtime member of Green America, an organization whose mission is to “harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.”
NorthStar Asset Management is pleased to announce that for the second year in a row it has been honored by B Corp as a “Best for the World” company in the customers category. According to B Corp, “Every business worth its salt aims to please its customers. The Best For The World: Customers honorees aim to improve the lives of their customers through the use of their product or service.”
NorthStar’s work on mapping prison labor in the supply chain was recently featured in a Responsible Investor article. The article describes the growing trend in socially responsible investing to take a closer look not only at investments in private prisons, but also the wider network of companies that are somehow related to prisons in general.
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal at Facebook in recent months, in which the personal data of up to 87 million users were inappropriately shared with political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, shareholders across the country have grappled with how to respond to this highly concerning privacy issue.
At the 2018 annual shareholder meeting of Costco Wholesale, shareholders will vote on a stockholder proposal asking the company to review prison labor in the company’s supply chain. Read more here.
NorthStar is proud to announce that it has been honored as a Best for the World company by B Lab, the “non-profit that certifies B Corporations, companies using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems” list by scoring in the top 10 percent of all B Corps in the “Customers” category due to our impact-driven business model.
Last Friday, NorthStar wrote to both Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) expressing concern about the June 2017 algorithmic changes to Google’s search functions which were intended to hinder the spread of fake news but have also ensnared traffic that would be referred to legitimate news sites that spread progressive news such as anti-war/pro-peace, pro-democratic, anti-racist matters. As our letters note, Google-referred viewership to many of these legitimate news sources steeply dropped off after the June 25, 2017 changes to Google’s algorithm by 20-67%. Facebook views and traffic have also declined for these news sources. Click through to read more.
As we recently announced, NorthStar is a founding member of the Shareholder Rights Group — a coalition of investors formed in response to the threats being lobbed at the rights of shareholders of publicly traded companies (especially small and active shareholders). We encourage you to read an article published on the Harvard Corporate Governance Blog written by the director of the Shareholder Rights Group.
NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. is proud to announce its membership in the Shareholder Rights Group, a coalition formed in 2016 to defend share owners’ rights to engage with public companies on governance and long-term value creation. Click through to read more about this new coalition.
At Alphabet, Inc.’s most recent annual meeting on June 7, 2017, class A shareholders overwhelmingly supported a shareholder proposal asking company management to recapitalize the share structure so that each share has one vote. According to the proponents of the proposal, assuming that all outstanding class B shares were similarly voted, then up to 99.8% of class A shareholders supported the proposal.
After engagement with shareholders, two California-based water utilities, California Water Service Group (NYSE: CWT) and American States Water (NYSE: AWR), have adopted policies confirming a commitment to support the human right to water (HRTW).
NorthStar’s own Ivy Jack (Head of Equity Research) and Mari Schwartzer (Assistant Director of Shareholder Activism, Engagement, and Social Research) were quoted in a Bloomberg article that was also reprinted to the Chicago Tribune as well regarding the push for board diversity in the United States, including NorthStar’s significant advocacy work in this area.
At the Procter & Gamble (P&G) annual shareholder meeting to be held on Tuesday, October 11th, stockholders will ask P&G how it plans to defend the company’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) employees and their families against discrimination and harassment that is encouraged or enabled by new legislation in several states in the U.S., such as North Carolina’s infamous “bathroom bill.” Click through to read more.
MEMPHIS, TN -- At the upcoming FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) annual shareholder meeting (September 26, 2016), stockholders are asking for details about strategies that FedEx will deploy to defend the company’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) employees...
NorthStar was quoted following a Facebook annual meeting. Read more here.
Financial Times featured NorthStar's shareholder proposal at Facebook this year in a recent article. Read it here.
Today NorthStar announced successful negotiations with IDEXX Laboratories (NASDAQ: IDXX) regarding proxy booklet disclosures explicitly describing the company’s focus on the diversity of the Board of Directors and senior management.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Boston, MA - NorthStar Asset Management, Inc., a Boston-based socially responsible investment firm, announced today that it has become a Certified B Corporation™ (B Corp) through B Lab, a nonprofit organization that empowers “a global movement of...
CNBC interviewed NorthStar's Julie Goodridge about our shareholder proposal at FedEx asking the company to take a stand against state-sponsored discrimination like North Carolina's infamous House Bill 2. In the article, Julie is quoted as stating that "A CEO's most...
Viewing investment decisions through an LGBT lens can pay off. An expanding body of evidence indicates that what’s good for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees is also good for investors. Analysts say companies that take the high road regarding sexual orientation tend to be progressive and thoughtful about other aspects of management as well.
Is Facebook’s dual-class stock structure—which essentially secures CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s control of the company—good or bad for investors?
That will be the top question as Facebook kicks off its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday in Santa Clara, California.
Dual class share structures, which ensure that a small group of company insiders have majority voting control, are all the rage among Internet companies. Facebook does it, Google does it (actually Google has three classes of shares), and LinkedIn does it.
But one small but vocal shareholder says it’s time for the practice to end.
A Facebook Inc. investor urged the social network to eliminate its supervoting stock, which would diminish Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s control of the company.
In a securities filing Monday, NorthStar Asset Management Inc. Funded Pension Plan backed a shareholder proposal that would prod Facebook to give all shares a single vote.
Over the last decade, investors have become increasingly concerned with the environmental and social impact of their investments across asset classes. Given the large social and environmental footprints of publicly traded corporations, and the persistently high allocation to public equities in most investor portfolios, public equity investing presents a major opportunity for impact investing. Yet impact investing, as currently practiced, concentrates primarily on small-scale direct investments in private equity and debt. Many investors perceive that social and environmental impact can be more readily observed there than in publicly traded companies, where ownership is intermediated, diluted, and diffused through secondary capital markets.
What does the Bay of Pigs have to do with lack of diversity in boardrooms—a situation in corporate America that Morgan Stanley CFO Ruth Porat recently described as an “embarrassment”?
More than you might think.
After fruitful negotiations with NorthStar Asset Management, Inc., a Boston-based wealth management firm, Intel Corporation will become the first U.S. corporation to commit to reviewing its political contributions for congruence with its company policies (such as the Intel Code of Conduct, Environmental, Health, & Safety Policy, Climate Change Policy, and Water Policy). NorthStar began this engagement with Intel last fall with the filing of a shareholder proposal on behalf of its pension plan, in which the firm conveyed its concern for potential misalignments between what Intel stands for and how the corporation spends its political giving dollars.
Citing concerns about the risks to Procter & Gamble’s brand, reputation, and shareholder value, NorthStar Asset Management Pension Plan is asking shareholders to weigh in on P&G political spending at the annual meeting on October 11.
The battle against the effects of the Supreme Court’s game-changing Citizens United decision, the ruling that ripped down the wall between corporations and American elections, is gathering steam among an unlikely group: investors. With Congress unable to pass new legislation and the Obama administration so far unwilling to fix the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission, it’s corporate shareholders who are increasingly on the front lines of the effort to foist accountability on the new Wild West of political spending.
Home Depot has released their annual proxy including a resolution calling for a shareholder vote requesting that political contributions reflect Home Depot’s stated corporate values. The resolution, filed by NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. of Boston, was filed in the aftermath of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the controversial Supreme Court decision in January of 2010 that removed prohibitions on corporate electioneering contributions.
After seven months of dialogue with FedEx Corporation, NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. is pleased to report that FedEx has committed to extending health benefits to domestic partners of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees in every state. Prompted by a discrepancy between FedEx’s comprehensive non-discrimination policy and the Company’s benefits packages, NorthStar filed a shareholder resolution with FedEx in April of this year asking that equal benefits be extended to partners and families of LGBT senior executives.
On the eve of World Water Day (March 22), Boston portfolio management company NorthStar Asset Management, Inc. is pleased to announce successful negotiations with Intel Corporation on the creation of an official Intel policy that supports the human right to water. Intel Corp. is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of semiconductor chips, the creation of which requires the ongoing use of large amounts of water.