Three Markers Of An Ethically Sound Board
For decades, CEOs have largely been seen as the top rung of the ladder, the ultimate decision makers and the source of “tone at the top,” to use an ...
-
Articles in category: BoardBlogs
-
Read Full Article
-
Women On Boards: Why The Conversation Matters
Read Full ArticleWomen are taking their rightful spots in American boardrooms in Fortune 1000 companies across the country, but progress is slow. In 2015, 18% of board members in Fortune 1000 companies were women. In 2016, women held 20.2% of board positions (registration required) in Fortune 500 companies – up from 10.2 % in 1996...
-
World's 50 Greatest Leaders
Read Full ArticleThough it seems unlikely, Tim Cook and Indira Jaising have something in common besides membership in Fortune’s 2018 ranking of the World’s Greatest Leaders. Cook (No. 14) is the wealthy CEO of Apple, the most valuable publicly traded company on earth; Jaising (No. 20) is an Indian lawyer who cofounded an NGO called Lawyers Collective, which promotes human rights issues. Yet they share this trait: Both have multiplied their organizations’ effectiveness by harnessing the power of unbundling.
-
Fortis Directors Deserve a Discharge Slip
Read Full ArticleFortis Healthcare Ltd. has to admit a new owner to keep the lights on. Before it does, though, India’s second-largest hospital chain must write four of its board members a discharge slip.
The country’s serious fraud office and the stock-market regulator are investigating Fortis even as it tries to sell itself to one of five serious suitors, which include Malaysian, Chinese and homegrown Indian buyers, as well as American private equity...
-
Forget Golf. Women’s Endowment Roles Can Lead to the Boardroom
Read Full Article(Bloomberg Markets) -- The old boys’ network is costing university endowments money. Investment committees that have female majorities typically generate higher returns than committees that don’t. “There’s something about the way women lead and the way they collaborate,” says Jolyne Caruso-FitzGerald, a 35-year Wall Street veteran and chair of the board of trustees at Barnard College, a women’s school in Manhattan. “There’s this intimidation factor on mostly male boards...
-
Musk Keeping Board Buddy in Limbo Shows Tesla's Governance Gap
Read Full ArticleThe activist firm affiliated with union pension funds pointed to the director's leave as emblematic of poor leadership and weak corporate governance...
-
In Europe, Misbehaving CEOs Pay Millions in Fines and Go to Jail, and We Need to Start Doing the Same in the US
Read Full Article- There have been a number of recent cases in which high-profile CEOs have been publicly penalized with fines and jail-time by European governments.
- CEOs that are guilty of similar transgressions have been held less accountable in the U.S.
- America would arguably benefit from adopting the European approach, forcing the government to play a more judicious role in punishing offending businesspeople...
-
CEOs Aren't Disclosing Their Real Compensation. The Pay Gap is Much Worse Than You Think.
Read Full ArticleCEOs aren't disclosing their real compensation. The pay gap is much worse than you think. The pay gap between workers and CEOs is already high. Add in gains on stock options, and it's infuriating. We need to keep CEOs accountable. Post to Facebook CEOs aren't disclosing their real compensation. The pay gap is much worse than you think. The pay gap between workers and CEOs is already high...
-
Amazon's 10-person Board Only Has Three Women. That's On Par With the Company's Peers.
Read Full ArticleAmazon has recently come under fire for the lack of diversity of its board of directors , but female representation on its board is near the average of the ...
-
Fortune 500 CEOs are Paid From Double to 5,000 Times More Than Their Employees
Read Full ArticleTransparency on executive pay shows how the other half lives. Chief executive pay in the U.S. is among the highest in the world, according to a new report by the staff of Keith Ellison, a Democratic congressman for Minnesota. U.S. publicly-listed companies have begun releasing how much their CEOs make compared to the rest of their staff. The revelations are required under a 2015 rule in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010...
-
CEO Pay and Performance Often Don’t Match Up
Read Full ArticleThe best-paid CEOs don’t necessarily run the best-performing companies. Corporate boards have tried for years to tie chief executive compensation to the results they deliver. The better the company and its shareholders do, the more the top boss should be paid, or so the pay-for-performance mantra goes. In reality, CEO pay and performance often don’t match up, and 2017 was no exception. Among...
-
John Berlau to SEC Commissioner Jackson: Companies Going Private and Delisting to Escape Regulatory Costs Have Contributed to a Massive Decline in the Total Number of Public Companies
Read Full ArticleTowards the end of April, SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr. delivered a heartfelt speech in Cleveland about the decline of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the US. While there has been much debate regarding the cause of this decline (with some questioning whether it even matters), Commissioner Jackson pointed a heavy finger at the fees levied upon smaller issuers as significant factor in creating the problem...
-
Why ValueAct Pounced On Citigroup (NYSE:C)
Read Full ArticleValueAct, a successful activist fund, has built a $1.2 billion stake in Citigroup ( C ). According to the WSJ it suggested Citigroup could boost its buyback plan from $40 to $50 billion. With a market cap of $185 billion that's a large percentage of stock to take out. Buyback programs of this relative size are rare. ValueAct seems to favor Citigroup for its old-fashioned treasury management for global businesses which is making it an important global money center bank...
-
Timeline: Xerox's Complex Relationship with Top Investors
Read Full Article(Reuters) - Xerox Corp's board is battling activist shareholder Carl Icahn and investor Darwin Deason over the company's plan to sell itself to Japan's Fujifilm in a deal the two say dramatically undervalues the photocopying firm. Following is a timeline of events when the two investors took a stake in the company and how their relationship slowly developed into one of the most contentious proxy fights currently on record...
-
Elon Musk's Brother Should be Booted from Tesla's Board as the Company's Looking 'more tenuous than ever'
Read Full Article- Tesla should remove Kimball Musk, James Murdoch, and Antonio Gracias from its board, an activist investor group said Wednesday.
- CtW Investment Group said the company's "continuing success looks more tenuous than ever."
- Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here.
A group of activist investors wants to radically shake up Tesla's board of directors...
-
Tesla’s Board Keeps Facing Investor Grievances
Read Full ArticleTesla Inc. is facing renewed criticism over its corporate governance a week after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk refused to answer questions about the company’s finances on an earnings call. While Musk calling analysts’ questions “boring” and “dry” was unusual, the billionaire and his board drawing fire from some investors is far from unprecedented.
1. Who’s attacking the company now, and why?...
-
It's Another Dust-Up Over AstraZeneca's CEO Pay, This Time Focused on His Bonus
Read Full ArticleAstraZeneca slashed CEO Pascal Soriot’s total compensation by 34% to £9.4 million ($12.7 million) in 2017, but that pay cut wasn’t deep enough for one influential voice on corporate governance...
-
How Netflix Redesigned Board Meetings
Read Full ArticleThe board of directors of a public company has a long list of oversight responsibilities, but it is not always the case that directors receive the ...
-
Canada -- Looking for a Few More Good People: Why Independent Directors are in Short Supply
Read Full ArticleGovernance issues to expect in 2018 Today, Giffen’s brand of independence is in high demand; he routinely declines appointments, and he isn’t the only one. The rise of shareholder activism has heavily leaned on independent directors. More stakeholder involvement has led to more disputes, which in turn has increased the burden on independents called upon to mediate those disputes...
-
Activist Investment Rising in Asia, Led by Local Players
Read Full ArticleHONG KONG (Reuters) - Activist investing in Asia is rising steadily, driven more by local players rather than headline-grabbing foreign firms, as the region's regulators pay greater attention to corporate governance, according to research from JP Morgan. Last year, there were 106 activist campaigns in Asia, versus 94 the previous year and just 10 in 2011, the investment bank said, citing data from Activist Investor and Shark Repellent...
-
Do Shareholders Need to Make a Demand Upon the Board of Directors Before Filing Suit on a Family-Owned Corporation’s Behalf?
Read Full ArticleWhen a shareholder claims that a director or officer has harmed a corporation through his or her improper conduct, these claims typically must be brought through a derivative action, in which the shareholder sues on behalf of the corporation...
-
Elon Musk Got Bored — and Shareholders Took the Hit
Read Full ArticleThe bizarre, contentious call was dubbed "arguably the most unusual call I have experienced in 20 years" by one Morgan Stanley analyst, and several experts on CEO communications, investor relations and corporate governance agreed: Such behavior creates market risks, can erode confidence and ...
-
Tesla Speeding Toward Capital Raise Crunch Time
Read Full ArticleNEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Tesla is speeding toward capital-raise crunch time. The electric-car maker on Wednesday reported a loss of $710 million in the first three months of the year. It also experienced a slew of other problems, including annoying a regulator after disclosing information about a fatal crash and losing more key staff. A Tesla Supercharger station is shown in Cabazon, California, U.S. May 18, 2016...
-
Can a CEO Also Be The Chair of a Corporate Board?
Read Full ArticleCan the CEO be his own boss? Easy to answer, no? Yet decades have passed and that question is still being asked, posed this spring in a shareholder proposal attached to the order of business for Loblaw Cos. Ltd.'s annual general meeting, being held Thursday. Not for the first time, the words of Andrew Grove have been deployed to underscore the point that every corporate leader needs a boss, even the CEO...
-