Become Public Benefit Corporation

Resolution Text

RESOLVED: United Parcel Service, Inc. (the “Company”) shareholders request our Board of Directors take steps necessary to amend our certificate of incorporation and, if necessary, bylaws (including presenting such amendments to the shareholders for approval) to become a public benefit corporation (a “PBC”) in light of its adoption of the Business Roundtable Statement of the Purpose of a Corporation (the “Statement”).

SUPPORTING STATEMENT: The Company signed the Statement,1 which proclaims "we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. . . . We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”

However, the Company is a conventional Delaware corporation, so that directors’ fiduciary duties emphasize the company and its shareholders, but not stakeholders (except to the extent they create value for shareholders over time). Accordingly, when the interests of shareholders and stakeholders such as workers or customers clash, the Company’s legal duty excludes all but shareholders.

As one Delaware law firm reported to another signatory considering conversion, directors may consider stakeholder interests only if “any decisions made with respect to such stakeholders are in the best interests of the corporation and its stockholders.”2 That contradicts the commitment made in the Statement. In contrast, directors of a PBC must “balance” the interests of shareholders, stakeholders, and a specified benefit,3 giving legal status to the Statement's empty promise.

This difference is critical. A recent study determined that listed companies create annual social and environmental costs of $2.2 trillion.4 These costs have many sources, including pollution, climate change and employee stress5. A company required to balance stakeholder interests could prioritize lowering these costs, even if doing so sacrificed higher return.

That matters to our shareholders, the majority of whom are beneficial owners with broadly diversified interests. As of the 2020 proxy statement, the Company’s top three holders were Vanguard, State Street and BlackRock, which are generally indexed or otherwise broadly diversified.

Such shareholders and beneficial owners are unalterably harmed when companies follow Delaware’s “shareholder primacy” model and impose costs on the economy that lower GDP, which reduces equity value6. While the Company may profit by ignoring costs it externalizes, diversified shareholders will ultimately pay these costs. As a PBC, our Company could prioritize reducing these costs.

Shareholders are entitled to vote on a change that would serve their interests and ensure the commitment made to stakeholders is authentic and lasting.

1 https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an- economy-that-serves-all-americans
2 https://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/cf-noaction/14a-8/2020/harringtonwellsfargo021220-14a8.pdf
3 8 Del C, §365. 4https://www.schroders.com/en/sysglobalassets/digital/insights/2019/pdfs/sustainability/sustainex/sustainex- short.pdf
5 Id.
6 See, e.g., https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/11/05/market-cap-to-gdp-an-updated-look-at- the-buffett-valuation-indicator (total market capitalization to GDP “is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment”) (quoting Warren Buffet).

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Lead Filer

Sara Murphy
The Shareholder Commons
James McRitchie
Unspecified