More on agency risk and voting rights

BlackRock to give clients the right to vote

Direct voting at AGMs is first step by major asset manager to give ultimate owners of votes the power to use them 

This is an important step towards reducing unnecessary agency risk, but recognize it excludes at this point individuals. Institutions can vote their shares of record, but individuals can not. This seems to me to be an substantial inequity worthy of a class action given that an individual's holding in any mutual fund would represent merely one more line in a glorified spreadsheet.

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Institutional investors recognize how important and valuable this feature is, which is why they demanded it, and BlackRock is wise to lead the way to offloading the related responsibility and liability. Vanguard should wise up, but they seem to have become overly complacent with their penchant for cost structure at the cost of continued innovation. It is possible, although I doubt it, that they recognize the value, or power, implicit in their voting power and have chosen to retain it. More likely they are looking at the cost of the spreadsheet.

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The next step, it would seem, would be to make voting rights detachable and marketable such that any investor would have the option to vote or sell their rights... et voila, you would have a market determined price of corporate governance, a direct vote in that which you own, or more money in you pocket, if you choose.