It’s a well-known fact that corporate governance in general, and annual meetings in particular, are a complete joke. If you believe in shareholder democracy, then please give me the tooth fairy’s email address.

But Sunrise Senior Living, Inc. (NYSE: SRZ) has taken the corporate governance parody to astounding heights. On October 16th, 17 months after its last annual meeting, and after options scandals, accounting scandals, and the firing of a CEO among other thing, shareholders will convene for the annual meeting.

The New York Times piece on this travesty sums it up: Welcome to the annual meeting. Now be quiet. Only three directors will be standing for re-election, and no other business issues will be allowed to be discussed.

And we thought the shareholders owned the company, and the board/officers were supposed to be held accountable to them. Hah!

We can only hope Sunrise’s assisted-living facilities treat their residents with more respect than the company treats its shareholders.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.