R.I.P. Evelyn Y. Davis
6 Nov 2018 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatThis post is for my mom, who died in 2011. She's the only person I know would care about this (but maybe some people I know care without my realizing it).
Mom was the family investor and she taught me about stocks. Part of learning about stocks was reading companies' annual reports and proxy statements for shareholder meetings.
On many of the proxies I read for big corporations, I noticed that someone named Evelyn Y. Davis had submitted shareholder proposals (according to a Vanity Fair article, they often involved "the election of accountants, political neutrality, disclosure of executive compensation"). Her proposals always had lots of ALL CAPS in the text.
Here's an article about shareholder proposals. http://theshareholderactivist.com/shareholder-activism-spotlight/what-is-a-shareholder-proposal/
My mom and I used to joke about Evelyn Y. Davis while we read proxy statements. I tried to imagine what kind of person would submit all these proposals that almost always lost (in part because of how share-voting works). She would usually mention in the proposal the results from the previous time she'd submitted the proposal. Over the years it seemed that she lost by less huge margins, but she still always lost.
I haven't thought about Evelyn Y. Davis in years, but today there was an obit for her in the Washington Post. I learned a bunch of things about her. She sounds like someone who was seriously unpleasasnt to deal with (she made personal attacks against people's appearance, among other things) and who probably had different politics than mine in some ways (although we both believe in corporate accountability), but she is fun to read about.
She was a Holocaust survivor. She went to shareholder meetings and regularly disrupted them with outrageous antics or just hogged the mike. She was obsessed with her own fame. She published a magazine for CEOs and subscriptions cost $100s of dollars. CEOs felt they had to buy her magazine to placate her. She donated to hospitals, journalism schools, and others, in exchange for displaying a plaque with her name. When she bought cars, she insisted that the CEO of the company personally deliver her car, and had the clout to make them do it. She had her own tombstone erected in 1981 and she periodically updated it.
Now it will have a death date on it. I wonder if she and Mom will get along.
The obituary, which is the only link I found that had photos of her.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/evelyn-y-davis-activist-shareholder-and-queen-of-the-corporate-jungle-dies-at-89/2018/11/05/b95f82c6-e10e-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html
A Vanity Fair article from 2002, which said "Davis was always sure she didn’t want children of her own. ‘If I’m not in control of something, I’m very unhappy, and you can’t control children.‘" (So she was wise about that at least.) She also said "‘You can see I’m in control at these meetings, and I really want to be. I enjoy having power over men."
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2002/07/shareholder-activism-200207
A Washington Post article from 2003 that the writer let her mostly write herself (it's very funny).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/04/20/the-stock-character/f03271e1-74ee-4cad-918e-c18ef7d0f2d9/
The Atlas Obscura entry for Evelyn Y. Davis's tombstone.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/evelyn-y-davis-gravestone
A Washington Post article about her tombstone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/31/entrusting-her-epitaph-to-no-one/ab9ad8f5-328d-46bf-82c9-02610e7c35a8/
Mom was the family investor and she taught me about stocks. Part of learning about stocks was reading companies' annual reports and proxy statements for shareholder meetings.
On many of the proxies I read for big corporations, I noticed that someone named Evelyn Y. Davis had submitted shareholder proposals (according to a Vanity Fair article, they often involved "the election of accountants, political neutrality, disclosure of executive compensation"). Her proposals always had lots of ALL CAPS in the text.
Here's an article about shareholder proposals. http://theshareholderactivist.com/shareholder-activism-spotlight/what-is-a-shareholder-proposal/
My mom and I used to joke about Evelyn Y. Davis while we read proxy statements. I tried to imagine what kind of person would submit all these proposals that almost always lost (in part because of how share-voting works). She would usually mention in the proposal the results from the previous time she'd submitted the proposal. Over the years it seemed that she lost by less huge margins, but she still always lost.
I haven't thought about Evelyn Y. Davis in years, but today there was an obit for her in the Washington Post. I learned a bunch of things about her. She sounds like someone who was seriously unpleasasnt to deal with (she made personal attacks against people's appearance, among other things) and who probably had different politics than mine in some ways (although we both believe in corporate accountability), but she is fun to read about.
She was a Holocaust survivor. She went to shareholder meetings and regularly disrupted them with outrageous antics or just hogged the mike. She was obsessed with her own fame. She published a magazine for CEOs and subscriptions cost $100s of dollars. CEOs felt they had to buy her magazine to placate her. She donated to hospitals, journalism schools, and others, in exchange for displaying a plaque with her name. When she bought cars, she insisted that the CEO of the company personally deliver her car, and had the clout to make them do it. She had her own tombstone erected in 1981 and she periodically updated it.
Now it will have a death date on it. I wonder if she and Mom will get along.
The obituary, which is the only link I found that had photos of her.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/evelyn-y-davis-activist-shareholder-and-queen-of-the-corporate-jungle-dies-at-89/2018/11/05/b95f82c6-e10e-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html
A Vanity Fair article from 2002, which said "Davis was always sure she didn’t want children of her own. ‘If I’m not in control of something, I’m very unhappy, and you can’t control children.‘" (So she was wise about that at least.) She also said "‘You can see I’m in control at these meetings, and I really want to be. I enjoy having power over men."
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2002/07/shareholder-activism-200207
A Washington Post article from 2003 that the writer let her mostly write herself (it's very funny).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/04/20/the-stock-character/f03271e1-74ee-4cad-918e-c18ef7d0f2d9/
The Atlas Obscura entry for Evelyn Y. Davis's tombstone.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/evelyn-y-davis-gravestone
A Washington Post article about her tombstone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/31/entrusting-her-epitaph-to-no-one/ab9ad8f5-328d-46bf-82c9-02610e7c35a8/
no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2018 07:50 am (UTC)