ARTISAN PARTNERS ASSET MANAGEMENT (APAM)
Sector: Financials
2026 Annual Meeting Analysis
ARTISAN PARTNERS ASSET MANAGEMENT · Meeting: June 3, 2026
Directors FOR
9
Directors AGAINST
0
Say on Pay
FOR
Auditor
FOR
Director Elections
Election of Nine Directors to Serve Until the 2027 Annual Meeting of Stockholders
Independent director with extensive investment management and operational experience; no overboarding, attendance, or TSR trigger concerns — APAM's 3-year price return of +39.8% trails XLF by only 25.2 percentage points, well below the 65-point threshold required to trigger a vote against given the strong positive absolute return.
Long-tenured independent director with deep investment management and private equity expertise; no overboarding or attendance issues, and the TSR gap of 25.2 percentage points versus XLF does not meet the 65-point threshold required for a strong-positive-TSR company.
Joined the board in January 2026, which is within the 24-month new-director exemption window, so he is automatically exempt from the TSR trigger; brings strong investment management and operational credentials from Goldman Sachs and TIFF Investment Management.
Executive director with long tenure as CEO and now Executive Chair; APAM's 3-year price return of +39.8% trails XLF by 25.2 percentage points, well below the 65-point threshold required to trigger a vote against for a company with strong positive absolute returns, so no TSR flag applies.
Joined the board in July 2025, which is within the 24-month new-director exemption window, so he is automatically exempt from the TSR trigger; brings strong financial expertise as former CFO of Charles Schwab and chairs the Audit Committee.
Long-tenured Lead Independent Director with proven technology and executive leadership background from founding Advent Software; no overboarding or attendance issues, and the 25.2-percentage-point TSR gap versus XLF is far below the 65-point trigger threshold.
CEO and director since June 2025, placing his board tenure within the 24-month new-director exemption window; brings extensive investment management leadership experience and was the planned successor to Eric Colson.
Independent director since 2013 with broad global operating and human capital experience; currently serves on ConocoPhillips and Western Union boards — two seats, which does not trigger the overboarding policy — and the TSR gap does not meet the trigger threshold.
Independent director since August 2021 with investment management and financial expertise; no overboarding or attendance concerns, and the 25.2-percentage-point TSR gap versus XLF is well below the 65-point threshold applicable to APAM's strong positive absolute return.
All nine director nominees pass the policy screens. APAM's 3-year price return of +39.8% is strongly positive in absolute terms, and the 25.2-percentage-point gap versus the XLF benchmark is well below the 65-point threshold required to trigger a vote against any director. Three directors (Brenan, Crawford, Gottlieb) joined within the past 24 months and are automatically exempt from the TSR trigger. All committees are 100% independent, attendance was satisfactory for all directors, and no overboarding issues were identified.
Say on Pay
✓ FORCEO
Eric Colson
Total Comp
N/A
Prior Support
97%%
The CEO (Eric Colson, serving as Executive Chair in a transitional year) received total compensation of approximately $7.24 million, which is reasonable for the head of a $2.7 billion market-cap asset manager in the Financial Services sector. The pay program is strongly performance-oriented — 95% of the CEO's and the incoming CEO Jason Gottlieb's total pay was performance-based, and 88–90% for other named executives — well above the 50–60% variable pay threshold required by policy. The company also maintains a meaningful clawback policy, equity ownership guidelines, no employment agreements or guaranteed bonuses, and received 97% shareholder support on last year's say-on-pay vote, reflecting broad investor approval of the compensation structure.
Auditor Ratification
✓ FORAuditor
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Tenure
N/A
Audit Fees
N/A
Non-Audit Fees
N/A
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a Big Four firm, appropriate for a $2.7 billion asset manager. Auditor tenure was not disclosed in the filing, so the tenure trigger cannot fire per policy — the absence of tenure disclosure is a minor negative but does not warrant a vote against. No fee data was provided in the filing text supplied, so the non-audit fee ratio cannot be calculated; however, with no adverse fee information available and no disclosed restatements, the default FOR vote applies.
Overall Assessment
APAM's 2026 annual meeting presents three standard proposals — director elections, say-on-pay, and auditor ratification — all of which pass policy screens and warrant a FOR vote. The compensation program is highly performance-linked, the board is well-composed with appropriate independence and expertise, and the company's stock has delivered strong positive absolute returns over three years, keeping TSR underperformance versus the XLF benchmark well below the threshold needed to trigger any vote against directors.