Management: With a Little Stock And a Lot of Cheek

For all too many U.S. companies, the annual stockholders' meeting in recent years has become a raucous cross between a stage show and a shouting match. Profanity and horn honking disrupted Communications Satellite Corp.'s session last month. President Darryl F. Zanuck had to outshout hecklers-one of whom came dressed as Cleopatra-at the 20th Century-Fox Films meeting, and shareowners peppered management of the A. & P. with a talkathon that included a suggestion that it make cottage cheese easier to find in its stores. Usually armed with a little bit of stock and a lot of cheek, professional scolds seldom miss a chance to bait corporate officers, make speeches and generally turn the spotlight on themselves.

To Investment Banker Sidney J. Weinberg, senior partner in Manhattan's Goldman Sachs & Co. and once a director of 35 companies (he has cut it to six), all this corporate tolerance is no laughing matter. Annual meetings are becoming a "circus," says Weinberg, thanks to "publicity-seeking characters who attend primarily to ask impertinent, irrelevant, sometimes abusive questions. This kind of behavior must be stopped right now, before stockholders lose respect for management. The vast majority of stockholders resent these characters. I was delighted when many companies that dispensed free lunches and free products at meetings stopped it, but the situation is growing worse. As a result of the notoriety, other people are training themselves to follow in their footsteps." Weinberg's advice to corporate officers: insist on decorum, cut stockholders off after "one or two questions," firmly rule irrelevant gibes out of order and keep the names and pictures of gadflies out of post-meeting reports.