For the second time, on May 22nd, 2014, Etica Sgr voted at the shareholder annual general meeting of Intel, stressing the management on some environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Intel is the biggest American multinational semiconductor chip maker (microprocessors, flash memory, etc.).
Etica Sgr voted for the election of ten proposed Directors, because no corporate governance issues have been found on the composition of the Board, while it abstained on the ratification of external auditors and on the advisory vote to ratify named executive officers’ compensation. Regarding the abstention on this last item, Etica Sgr took into consideration the lack of detailed information on the indicators underlying the short term variable part of the compensation and the absence of a threshold level that has to be reached for the distribution of bonuses, moreover the variable part of the remuneration is extremely high. However, the remuneration policy of the Company contains different good practices as the presence of independent Directors in the Remuneration Committee, the disclosure of financial goals, the presence of ESG performance indicators and the evidence of its attempt of engaging shareholders after the critics received during the 2013 annual general meeting. Etica Sgr decided to abstain on that item, monitoring future effort of the Company in improving its remuneration policy.
