US companies including Bank of America, American Express and Whole Foods are to be targeted by activist shareholders over plans to replace their chief executives, in a further sign of investors' increasing power in corporate America.
The Laborers' International Union of North America, whose pension funds manage about $30bn, said it had filed proposals with 14 companies asking them to detail succession planning policies and put them to a vote in their annual meetings.
The move takes advantage of a recent decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission to relax rules that prevented a shareholder vote on succession, long regarded as the responsibility of boards.