CalPERS Wins Support for Lilly Proposal

Four proxy advisory services have endorsed the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) proposal to give Eli Lilly shareowners the right to amend company bylaws, the retirement fund said yesterday.

Proposal 7 is on the proxy card as a nonbinding resolution at the drug company’s annual meeting next week.

At Eli Lilly, shareowners currently cannot institute bylaw amendments, a right that approximately 95 percent of companies in the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 indexes allow. The CalPERS resolution asks that shareholders be allowed to amend company bylaws by a simple majority vote.

The pension fund’s shareowner resolution is supported by U.S. proxy advisory firms Egan-Jones, Glass Lewis, RiskMetrics Group (formerly known as ISS), and Proxy Governance.