Financial Times (June 20)
“Six months into its financial crisis, Toshiba is shaping up as the Sistine Chapel of corporate catastrophes: you have to lie on your back to appreciate its scale, and once you get your eye in, the beauty is mesmerising.” Toshiba’s sweeping catastrophe “encapsulates much that investors — both foreign and domestic — have long despaired.” And “for a Japanese government apparently committed to reversing decades of shoddy corporate governance… Toshiba provides the perfect example of why it is pushing for change.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Corporate governance, Despair, Financial Crisis, Government, Investors, Japan, Scale, Shoddy, Sistine Chapel, Toshiba
Financial Times (April 10)
“Japan’s progress on stewardship and corporate governance reform has looked wobbly of late. The ROE gains made in the first 30 months of Abenomics (up from an average of 5.8 per cent in December 2012 to a mid-2015 peak of 8.8 per cent) have been in steady reversal since then.”
Tags: Abenomics, Corporate governance, Japan, Progress, ROE, Stewardship, Wobbly
The Week (April 2)
By any measure, Uber has been having a terrible year. Some have posited it could threaten the tech bubble. “Uber is by far the most valuable of the 187 ‘unicorn’ startups valued at $1 billion or more, despite losing at least $1.2 billion in the first half of 2016.” But Uber is unlikely to spark a chain reaction. “The tech industry’s funding sources are more diversified than they were in the original dot-com bubble, and the definition of what makes a ‘technology company’ is also much broader. Odds are, investors will see Uber’s flaws as an isolated case of bad corporate governance, not evidence that they shouldn’t be investing in startups.”
Tags: Chain reaction, Corporate governance, Diversified, Dot-com bubble, Funding, Investor, Isolated case, Startups, Tech bubble, Terrible, Uber, Unicorns
Institutional Investor (December 29)
“Disruption in the asset management industry is imminent…. Due to a combination of new technologies, shifting demographics and changing client demands, the asset manager of the future must self-regulate, adopt corporate governance by investment firms, invest in technology, and cultivate and keep top-notch talent.”
Tags: Asset management, Client demands, Corporate governance, Demographics, Disruption, Imminent, Self-regulate, Talent, Technology
Reuters (August 18)
“Short-sellers who made their names and fortunes wiping billions off Chinese and Southeast Asian companies are setting their sights on Japan after a series of accounting scandals amplified concerns about weak corporate governance there. Until recently, corporate managers in Japan have enjoyed relatively limited scrutiny of their governance standards and accounting rigor.”
Tags: China, Corporate governance, Fortunes, Japan Accounting scandals, Scrutiny, Short sellers, Southeast Asia, Standards, Weak
Wall Street Journal (July 11)
Spurred by Japan’s corporate governance reforms, Nintendo finally relented and committed to broadening its reach to mobile devices. Pokémon Go, one result of this decision, has boosted “the struggling Japanese firm’s market value by $7.5 billion—a turn of corporate fortune with lessons for Japan Inc. …. The fitness-conscious should like a video game that requires players to be active, and Nintendo’s long-suffering shareholders are glad that one of their products is breaking the internet. Here’s hoping other notoriously risk-averse Japanese corporations take the hint.”
Tags: Corporate governance, Japan, Japan Inc., Market value, Mobile, Nintendo, Pokémon Go, Risk-averse, Shareholders, Video game
The Economist (February 13)
Japan’s corporate-governance code emphasizes “shareholder rights and the duty of outside board directors to promote them.” This means Sharp’s external directors will fear “being sued by shareholders if they opted for the INCJ’s much lower bid,” perhaps more than they fear pressure from METI and others to favor the Japanese bid. A deal with “Foxconn would show that Japan is changing its attitude to outsiders. One reason it may come off is that as a failing firm, Sharp matters less for national pride. A foreign takeover of a more successful firm would be different.”
Tags: Corporate governance, Directors, Foxconn, INCJ, Japan, METI, Shareholder rights, Sharp
Bloomberg (July 21)
“Japan’s corporate-governance code, introduced only a month ago, raised hopes that the country’s ossified corporate culture might finally crack open. The $1.2 billion accounting scandal at Toshiba…underscores how much further the country has to go.”
Tags: Accounting, Corporate culture, Corporate governance, Hopes, Japan, Scandal, Toshiba
Wall Street Journal (July 20)
“The Lee family that controls the Samsung conglomerate won its showdown with minority shareholders on Friday, but the vote still represents a watershed for corporate governance in the world’s 14th-largest economy. Though Samsung won, the bell is tolling for South Korea’s chaebol system of corporate control.” The shareholder fight marked “a step forward for corporate reform in Asia” where “a new shareholder class has been mobilized.”
Tags: Asia, Chaebol, Conglomerate, Corporate governance, Lee, Minority shareholders, Samsung, South Korea, Watershed
Financial Times (March 24)
In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission “will not be able to keep an open mind for very long” on whether to allow dual-class shares. Since 1987, Hong Kong has abided by the “current one-share-one-vote principle.” Citing the weakness of corporate governance in Hong Kong, some investors want to retain the current system, while others are calling for change to better compete with U.S. listings where dual-class shares are allowed.
Tags: Corporate governance, Dual-class shares, Hong Kong, Investors, Listings, Securities and Futures Commission, U.S., Vote
