By Alistair Barr

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) - U.S. companies are being advised to batten down the hatches for their annual meetings this year amid rising anger among investors and the public over bonuses, bailouts, layoffs and slumping share prices.

"There are a lot of angry people out there," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel at Institutional Shareholder Services, the corporate governance advisory unit of RiskMetrics Group (RMG). "I've never seen violence at annual meetings in the U.S., but we've never seen such dislocation."

Proxy printer R.R. Donnelley is telling companies how to beef up security and handle unruly investors as corporate America reels from an unprecedented spasm of anti-business outrage.

Protests were organized for Thursday outside offices of American International Group, Goldman Sachs , Wells Fargo and Bank of America across the country.

AIG (AIG) employees have been getting death threats since a national furor erupted this week about more than $160 million in bonuses the troubled insurer recently paid.

"We don't discuss security arrangements, but appropriate precautions are being taken," AIG spokesman Nicholas Ashooh said, referring to Thursday's planned protests. "It's premature to discuss the annual meeting - it's not until mid-May."

Companies have been advised to contact local police departments to warn officers ahead of time about possible trouble at their annual meetings. Security and legal staff are being assigned to eject disruptive shareholders from meetings if necessary.

The extra security steps show how companies have become the focus of widespread anger as the recession has deepened and unemployment surged. In addition to disgruntled shareholders, former employees and protestors against executive compensation could also pose problems.

Volatile combination

The volatile combination of stock market losses, layoffs and big executive pay packages could make for explosive meetings this year, McGurn explained.

The average shareholder of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index has lost 46% since the start of 2008. Gallup's index of investor confidence went negative for the first time in October and hit a record low of -64 last month.

"When surveys go negative, you know you're not in Kansas anymore," McGurn said.

Major U.S. companies have announced more than 1.6 million layoffs since the beginning of 2008, according to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.

Meanwhile, chief executives of some large companies continue to collect huge compensation packages.

State Street shares have slumped 66% since the start of 2008 and the giant custodian bank announced plans in December to cut up to 1,800 jobs. CEO Ronald Logue missed out on a bonus, but collected $28.7 million in total compensation from that year.

Hovnanian shares are off 79% since 2008 began. The homebuilder cut more than 1,500 jobs last year, but CEO Ara Hovnanian got a $1.5 million bonus in cash and stock.

NYSE Euronext (NYX) unveiled plans to cut a quarter of U.S. jobs last year. Shares of the stock exchange operator are down 78% since the beginning of last year, but CEO Duncan Niederauer still got a $2 million bonus, the same as 2007.

'Possible disturbances'

This year's handbook on annual meetings produced by R.R. Donnelley (RRD) advises companies to be especially careful.

"With the current state of the economy and recent corporate scandals, many commentators believe that shareholder attendance at annual meetings will increase, and that shareholders will be more active in voicing questions and concerns," authors Craig Garner and Jonathan Kaplan warned. "Security will likely be more important to conducting a successful meeting in coming years."

Companies should contact their local police department to tell them about upcoming meetings and pass on any information that's already known about "possible disturbances," they said.

Security or legal staff should be assigned ahead of time to help escort "disruptive shareholders" from meetings, they added.

The handbook even provides a detailed script for company chairmen and women to follow if investors become unruly.

First, the chairwoman should ask shareholders to be quiet.

If a second warning is needed, Garner and Kaplan suggest: "Please keep quiet so that we may continue with the meeting in an orderly manner. Otherwise you will be asked to leave the meeting and, if necessary, removed from this room."

A third infraction and the investor should be ejected with the following order: "I have repeatedly asked you to stop your disruptive conduct and have advised you that your action is out of order. However, you have chosen not to comply with my request and as Chairperson of this meeting, I must now ask you to the leave the meeting. Security, would you please escort this individual from the meeting."

Love-fest lost

It wasn't always like this.

"Meetings used to be more of a love-fest," Garner, a partner in the San Diego office of law firm Latham & Watkins, said. "Shareholders would come just to eat bagels, have coffee and talk about how great things were."

But in the wake of corporate scandals in recent years, Garner said advice on security was added to the handbook.

"More discussions center on this topic given uncertainty about how management will be treated at meetings this year," he added.

In previous years, disgruntled shareholders were the source of most minor disruptions. But with the surge in layoffs, angry former employees who own company stock could also turn up this year, Garner explained.