Kroger Investors Pay Gap Proposal Win Emboldens Activists (2)

A persistent shareholder push for companies to disclose discrepancies in how they pay women and minorities witnessed a rare event for this proxy season at Kroger’s annual meeting: they actually won.

Similar pay equity proposals at companies including Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Apple and Amazon this year didn’t make the cut. Overall these types of proposals have lost some steam—getting an average 31% of shareholder support, down from 42% last year, according to data presented at a Practising Law Institute conference earlier this week. And proxy plans in general tied to environmental, social and corporate governance issues have waned recently amid ...