RE:AGM and voting4hand.
A majority of public companies’ shares (70-80%) are held in “street name” – Shares held in “street name” are held of record through The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) by participant broker-dealer and banks who, in turn, hold shares on behalf of their clients, the individual beneficial owners – The “street name” system was developed in stages over the last 40 years to replace physical exchange of certificates and checks, and underlies the US market's ability to handle tremendous trading volumes, encourage greatly increased participation in the capital markets and support significant innovation in financial products • As the “legal” owner of shares, only the shareholder of record has voting rights – Upon the record date established for a company’s annual meeting (identifying those holders eligible to vote), DTCC provides a list of broker-dealers, banks and other institutions that hold the company’s shares in street name and issues an “omnibus proxy” to transfer the voting rights to these participants – Street name or beneficial shareholders do not have direct voting rights – Beneficial shareholders, generally by contract with their bank or broker, have the right to provide ‘voting instructions’ to their bank or broker, who, in turn, has the legal right to actually vote those shares