Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump stands to get a windfall of $3.5 billion now that shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp. have approved a merger with his Truth Social on Friday. The potential multibillion dollar infusion comes as New York Attorney General Letitia James is moving to seize Trump’s assets to pay a $464 million bond in his New York civil fraud case. The long-delayed merger came after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved it last month, and means that Trump’s company Trump Media & Technology Group will trade on the stock market under the stock ticker “DJT” as early...

America First Legal (AFL) on Tuesday filed a shareholder lawsuit against Target in response to the retailer’s Pride merchandise that resulted in significant backlash, boycotts and a drop in stock price. Target locations across the country famously stunned customers in May when massive June Pride Month displays were unveiled featuring everything from female-style swimsuits that can be used to "tuck" male genitalia to mugs that said "gender fluid." The polarizing Pride merchandise also included onesies and rompers for newborn babies, a variety of adult clothing with slogans such as "Super Queer," party supplies, home decor, multiple books and a "Grow...

We’ve seen Target take a huge stock dive with about $14 billion in market cap lost as of Tuesday, since the middle of May. We reported how they faced two downgrades — from JP Morgan and KeyBanc — and had been on the worst losing streak that they’ve had in 23 years. JP Morgan cited as the basis for their downgrade “too many concerns rising.” That’s a massive change in such a short period. Now, Elon Musk and Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary are warning about what might be the next shoe to drop for the company under siege.O’Leary, on “Jesse...

Corporations that wrecked their images in woke marketing campaigns could pay a price for decisions that cost shareholders money. On Tuesday, America First Legal took to Twitter on a fishing expedition looking for disgruntled shareholders who have seen their investments flow down the drain faster than a barrel of Bud Light since the beer’s embrace of transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney led to a weeks-long boycott that shows no sign of stopping. “ATTENTION: Are you a shareholder of @Target @Kohls @abinbev, or other companies that are promoting transgender, LGBTQ and PRIDE products and diminishing shareholder value? We want to hear from...

In tracking BLM contributions, we found many companies prioritizing ‘racial justice’ to the detriment of shareholders and employees.Most Americans will remember the first few years of the 2020s for the pandemic, the lockdowns, the layoffs, and the Black Lives Matter (BLM)-fueled riots. Shareholders will also remember them as a tempestuous time for the market. Many companies announced mass layoffs and cuts to dividends and share buyback programs. For example, Disney’s last dividend date was Dec. 12, 2019.But shockingly, as we’ve shown in our BLM Funding Database, companies contributed or pledged more than $83 billion to the BLM movement and related...

TOKYO, April 10 (Reuters) - A coalition of climate groups are stepping up pressure on Japan's top three banks to cut financing linked to fossil fuels, filing shareholder resolutions to be voted on at the companies' annual general meetings in June, sources said on Monday. The groups are targeting megabanks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, all key to financing oil and gas projects, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the information is not yet public. The coordinated effort marks a step up from the past three years, when climate groups targeted...

Three of the five top shareholders in Norfolk Southern — the freight rail carrier under the spotlight for its saftey and environmental record following last month's toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — have been aligned with the eco-conscious, socially aware ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing framework embraced by many leading financial firms in recent years. Asset management firms BlackRock Fund Advisors, JPMorgan Investment Management, and The Vanguard Group were all part of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, a coalition of ESG-minded money mangers committed to channeling investment capital to firms working toward the goal of net-zero greenhouse...

WASHINGTON — The attorneys general of California, Illinois and the District of Columbia are suing Albertsons in an effort to stop the grocery chain from paying a nearly $4 billion dividend to its shareholders. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asks the court to block the payment until the attorneys general have reviewed Albertsons’ proposed merger with Kroger Co. The lawsuit is the second this week seeking to delay the dividend payment. The state of Washington's Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a similar lawsuit in state court Tuesday. Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons said Wednesday that both...

"Our view was always, 'Let's just run a business.'" Today, former Walmart CEO Bill Simon would be in the minority. As more companies pick sides in the cultural debate, he -- like a lot of executives -- is having a hard time understanding which business these CEOs are in: advancing left-wing advocacy or their company's brand? Things have changed a lot over Bill Simon's career. In the retail business, he remembers, it used to be simple. "We'll sell to anybody. We'll try to stay out of the public eye on issues that can be confrontational." Fast-forward to today, when everything...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., will introduce legislation Wednesday aimed at making the nation's largest companies accountable to employees and their local communities, not just shareholders. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Warren said companies in the late 20th Century started operating in a way that made them slaves to shareholders. "That shift has had a tremendous effect on the economy," she wrote. "In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities." "But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their...

Editors Note: The following is a statement from Sturm Ruger & Co. Please understand that Ruger was obligated by applicable law to include a shareholder’s activist resolution with its proxy materials for a shareholder vote. With its passage, the proposal requires Ruger to prepare a report. That’s it. A report. What the proposal does not do . . . and cannot do . . . is force us to change our business, which is lawful and constitutionally protected. What it does not do . . . and cannot do . . . is force us to adopt misguided principles created...

A Time Warner shareholder accused CNN of acting like it was the part the “resistance” movement against President Donald Trump. “I’m inquiring about CNN’s bias and our return on investment,” shareholder David Almasi reportedly told Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes during Thursday’s annual shareholders meeting. “Half the American public—which includes potential and current CNN viewers—voted for Trump last November and supports his agenda. CNN acts as if it is part of the anti-Trump resistance.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, “about half of the 300 people” at the annual shareholders meeting “applauded” Almasi while “several others later approached” him to “thank...

The massive revolt against the pay of BP’s chief executive, Bob Dudley, where almost 60 percent of the shareholders rejected the £14m (US$20 million) pay package is a stern warning to oil companies that investors aren’t pleased with the gaping disconnect between performance and pay structure. Similarly, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden’s 2015 pay package, including pension and tax equalization of 5.576 million euros (US$6.1 million), is likely to face resistance from shareholders as two shareholder-advisory firms have urged them to oppose the CEO’s pay.

BP is facing a revolt from its shareholders over the salary of its CEO Bob Dudley. Dudley’s salary jumped 20 percent in 2015 to $19.6 million, the same year in which BP reported a record loss of $6.4 billion and laid off more than 5,000 workers. His rising salary has been met with opposition from shareholders because it is not only unseemly, but also because the raise is not connected to the company’s negative performance. "We consider the pay of the CEO to be simply too high, and particularly so in a year when the company suffered a record loss...

Just days after JPMorgan revealed it would fire another 5,000 by the end of the year in a "scalpel" headcount reduction, overnight the world's favorite drug money laundering bank HSBC unleashed the "machete" and announced it would cut almost 50,000 workers, or one in five bankers, a move which would shrink the investment bank division by one-third. The reason: the same why US corporations are laying off tens of thousands so they can fund record stock buybacks and enrich their shareholders - to boost profits so that more money can be channeled in the form of dividends. According to...

Banks should accept a lower profit so their customers won’t have to pay for debit cards, President Barack Obama told an ABC reporter today, when asked about Bank of America’s decision to charge its customers $5 per month for use of its debit cards. Before Obama’s interview, the bank was already facing financial difficulties. Bank of America’s stock was trading at $10 per share in mid-July. Today, as the president joined Democratic politicians in complaining about the bank’s decision, its stock fell from $6.10 per share this morning to $5.60 by the end of the interview.

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs' top officers denied in a letter to shareholders made public Wednesday that the company bet against investors who bought its subprime mortgage securities in 2006 and 2007 as the firm readied itself for a sharp drop in the U.S. housing market. The eight-page letter opening the firm's 2009 annual report comes as the world's most prestigious investment bank seeks to rebuild its image in the face of negative publicity over executive bonuses and two federal investigations into its subprime dealings. Goldman "did not generate enormous net revenues or profits by betting against residential mortgage-related products, as...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Toyota faced its first U.S. class-action lawsuits stemming from complaints of faulty brakes in its top-selling Prius hybrid car and from investors claiming they were misled about problems with unintended acceleration in a wide range of models. Litigation mounted as the Japanese automaker prepared to follow global recalls of some 8 million vehicles for repairs to ill-fitting floor mats and sticking gas pedals with yet another recall to deal with braking problems in the new Prius model. A class-action suit filed on Monday on behalf of U.S. shareholders accuses Toyota Motor Corp of issuing "materially false...

Companies: After an all-out war on oil companies from the left in recent years, it bodes well for the future to see Big Oil now recognizing the attack it's under and its duty to fight back. Witness Chevron and Exxon Mobil.Shareholder meetings can be pro forma affairs, but not for major oil companies, which have become a lightning rod for the anti-corporate sentiment gaining traction in U.S. political life since around 2006. Wednesday, Chevron was descended upon by a zoo-full of San Francisco leftists pushing rain forest sentimentalism, Burma, and other pet causes dear to the no-soap crowd. They journeyed...

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who has taken a six-month medical leave from the company, will not attend Apple's shareholder meeting scheduled for this week, it was reported Monday. Jobs' absence will mark the first time the company's co-founder has not attended the annual meeting in more than a decade, business news agency Bloomberg reported. Jobs is on medical leave until June. Apple was not immediately available for comment. Jobs' absence from the Feb. 25 meeting is likely to highlight the importance of having a succession plan in place for the iconic CEO whose vision and strategy is seen as...