I was reading this thread and one of the points brought up is that little shareholders have no say in how a company is actually run. Generally, a shareholder has either so little shares as to have no effect or holds their shares via a mutual fund and has no say in how they vote.

More and more people seem a bit ticked off about this and it leads me to wonder if/when there might be mutual funds started specifically dealing with how the companies are run. For example, a dividend advocate fund which would obviously press companies to distribute increased dividends. Or a fund that would advocate to keep CEOs and other execs pay at lower levels. I'm not sure I like either of these examples but I can see how they'd be attractive to many people.

Would you invest in a fund like these? Have any other ideas along these lines?

I will not make my investments decisions based on good causes alone--that's what charities are for, but if one can convince me such a fund, for example an "executive pay capped" fund, can general superior returns for shareholders, I will do it.

if you want your "money manager" to control the companies were your money is going invest in Berkshire Hathaway

germanpope said:if you want your "money manager" to control the companies were your money is going invest in Berkshire Hathaway

I used to work for a BRK/A owned company. Operations and management were effectively unchanged following the acquisition. My understanding is that they tend to leave well enough alone. Of course, my experience is limited.

The reason that mutual funds cannot have that is that they have to submit the proxy votes to their shareholders and vote all the shares how the people that respond ask them to be voted. A green fund can have that built into their fund's overall investment strategy and they just don't buy securities that don't fit. For corporate governance they would have to buy securities and then try to pressure the management, which is not what they are there to do.

Hedge funds on the other hand do this all the time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/business/04deal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin