Company: SOJE
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000092122-25-000036
Chunk: 97

Company: SOUTHERN CO
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 97
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 considered this proposal and recommends that you vote AGAINST the proposal for the reasons described below.

Southern’s own proposal in Item 4 will eliminate the only remaining supermajority voting requirement in our governing documents, rendering this proposal unnecessary.

While the proposal’s language is not entirely precise, our understanding is that the proposal is seeking to eliminate the only remaining supermajority voting requirement in our governing documents, which is set forth in Article Eleventh of the Certificate. As described in Item 4, our governing documents contain only one supermajority voting requirement, Article Eleventh of the Certificate. Our By-Laws do not contain any supermajority voting requirements.

#### 84Southern Company2025 Proxy Statement

#### Stockholder Proposals
As described in Item 4, the Board cannot unilaterally remove the supermajority voting requirement from our Certificate as Delaware law also requires stockholders’ approval. For this reason, at seven stockholder meetings in the last 12 years (2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2024), the Board recommended that stockholders approve an amendment to our Certificate to eliminate the last remaining supermajority voting requirement in our organizational documents. Each time, the proposed amendment received strong stockholder support but failed to receive the required vote of two-thirds of our outstanding shares.

The Board and management have consistently worked to eliminate this last remaining supermajority voting requirement, including engaging a leading third-party proxy solicitor to assist with stockholder turnout. We believe the primary reason we have not received the required affirmative vote of 66 2/3% of outstanding shares is due to our large retail stockholder base, which typically returns a lower proportion of proxies than the Company’s institutional stockholder base. Over time, there has been a decrease in the percentage of outstanding shares of our stock that are beneficially held by retail, or individual, stockholders and an increase in the percentage of outstanding shares of our stock that are held by institutional investors. We have seen a corresponding increase in the affirmative vote of the issued and outstanding shares supporting this proposal over the same period. We have indicated to the proponent our view that the Company’s proposal to amend its Certificate is likely to pass as more of our retail stockholder base naturally shifts toward institutional ownership. In addition, we have routinely discussed this matter with our largest stockholders over the many years we have been seeking approval of the Certificate amendment, and these stockholders have consistently supported our approach.

This year, the