Report on Business magazine: December 2015
Ten years after founding a proxy advisory firm that became the go-to shop for activist shareholders and hostile bidders in Canada, Wes Hall is selling a majority of Kingsdale Shareholder Services Inc. to MDC Partners Inc.
The transaction, to be announced Wednesday, will see Kingsdale join a financial communications and strategic advisory group within MDC. That group includes Allison+Partners, Bryan Mills Iradesso, HL Group, Kwittken + Company, Luntz Global and Sloane & Co.
Proxy advisory has gone from a sleepy model of mailing paperwork and polling shareholders to a much more active business of pushing to win votes. Mr. Hall and his firm have been at the forefront of that shift in Canada. He was the subject of the cover story in the most recent ROB Magazine, which tells the story in full.