Euroshareholders and WFI will be holding their annual meetings in Ljubljana, Slovenia on September 19-20-21, 2012.

Ljubljana, the capital city, is the cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative centre of Slovenia.

At its meeting on March 15, in Gent, the WFI Executive Committee approved the following members:

New Members:
• Proactive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (Ibadan)
• Investors Association of the Philippines
• Croatian Investors Association (Zagreb)
Associate Members:
• Lawyer Wilfried Hübscher (Potsdam, Germany)
• Zimbabwe Shareholders Association
Correspondent:
• Guillermo González F. (Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala)

Washington, D.C., April 9, 2012 – The USA Security and Exchange Commission today announced that Roger H. Ganser, Chairman of the World Federation of Investors and NAIC/Better Investing (USA) was appointed to the new Investor Advisory Committee required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Section 911 of the Dodd-Frank Act established the new committee to advise the Commission on regulatory priorities, the regulation of securities products, trading strategies, fee structures, the effectiveness of disclosure, and on initiatives to protect investor interests and to promote investor confidence and the integrity of the securities marketplace. The Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the committee to submit findings and recommendations for review and consideration by the Commission.

Members of the newly formed committee were nominated by all five sitting Commissioners and represent a wide variety of interests, including senior citizens and other individual investors, mutual funds, pension funds, and state securities regulators.

"The SEC's new Investor Advisory Committee is made up of individuals with a broad range of backgrounds and experiences," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. "I look forward to their insight and recommendations as to how we can further the SEC's critical investor protection mission."

By unanimous vote the WFI Executive Committee meeting in Gent approved the formation of an Investor Advocacy Committee. The Committee's purpose shall be to guide and support WFI's advocacy role in a manner that befits WFI's role as the world's largest non-profit membership organization for national individual investor associations. The Committee shall facilitate WFI's participation in public or private discourse on topics in which individuals and/or club investors are stakeholders, including but not limited to those relating to government policy formation and policies of non-governmental organizations that impact the interests of individual and club investors, and efforts to educate, cooperate and facilitate useful information to members regarding shareholder rights and fair treatment.

To simplify our name and better characterize our purpose in all future marketing and promotional relations activities, we will use the name WORLD FEDERATION OF INVESTORS (WFI). Officially, our name remains the same and all financial and legal records of the corporation shall continue to use World Federation of Investors Corporation.

WFI director Frank Kaneko presented the draft curriculum that was developed from suggestions and examples from members by directors Kaneko, Paelinck and Ganser. This is a "work in process" and the next draft along with actual examples of classes will be presented at the Board meeting in September.

The Global Policy Board of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) invited feedback on proposed updates to ISS's benchmark proxy voting guidelines. As part of its role as an individual shareholder advocate, WFI submitted a letter to ISS that stated:

"The World Federation of Investors (WFI) is composed of thirty-seven national investor education/advocacy organizations from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. For over thirty years, WFI has supported efforts to empower individual investors and encourage good corporate governance practices. Consistent with this mission, WFI supports SEC's amended Rule 14a-8 that, among other things, helps to make the proxy process function in a more democratic manner, similar to an actual in-person meeting of shareholders. Since ISS's proposed policy change appears to be an adaptation to support Rule 14a-8, WFI supports ISS's proposed policy change."

See complete letter

NAIC/BetterInvesting, a WFI member, reported in their magazine (February 2012) that investors withdrew $6.8 billion from U.S. stock funds in September, $15.5 billion in August, and $22.9 billion in July. That appeared well timed since the third quarter was the worst quarter for U.S. stocks since the 2008-09 financial crises. However, investors withdrew another $18.2 billion in October, the best single month for U.S. stocks in 25 years with a 10.9% gain in the S&P 500. Year-to-date U.S. investors sold $53.5 billion of U.S. funds, continuing a pattern of net annual redemptions that prevailed since 2008.