Investment Week (March 13)
“The Parker Review has revealed targets to improve the ethnic diversity of the boards of FTSE 350 and the 50 largest private companies in the UK, with a deadline set for December 2027.” While the committee feels the progress being made with the FTSE 350 is satisfactory, it believes “equal access to board positions needs to be matched by actions across all levels in business.”
Tags: Boards, Deadline, December 2027, Equal access, Ethnic diversity, FTSE 350, Parker Review, Progress, Targets, UK
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (September 18)
ESG “is not a unitary principle or even a collection of a fixed set of particular principles. Rather, ESG encapsulates the range of risks that all corporations must carefully balance, taking into account their specific circumstances, in seeking to achieve long-term, sustainable value.” The ESG label may be new, but “corporate boards and management have long considered ESG factors and risks in setting and executing strategy…. Doing so is associated with superior financial results, and consistent with long-accepted norms as to the place of business in society.”
Tags: Balance, Boards, Circumstances, Corporations, ESG, Financial results, Fixed, Management, Principle, Range, Risks, Society, Strategy, Sustainable, Value
The Street (December 1)
To promote diversity and better governance, Nasdaq has proposed new rules that “would require companies to appoint at least two diverse directors on their boards or explain their rationale for not meeting that objective.” Before submitting its proposal to the SEC, Nasdaq analyzed over “two dozen studies that found an association between diverse boards and better financial performance and corporate governance.”
Tags: Boards, Directors, Diversity, Explain, Governance, Nasdaq, Performance, Rationale, Rules, SEC
The Economist (December 14)
“Mandatory quotas for women on company boards” are gaining traction “after softer targets failed to move the needle much.” The Netherlands was the latest country to “join seven European countries (and California) in replacing the carrot of ‘please’ with the stick of ‘or else’ to increase gender diversity.”
Tags: Boards, California, Carrot, Europe, Gender diversity, Mandatory, Netherlands, Quotas, Softer targets, Stick, Women
Institutional Investor (June 14)
“Companies and their stake holders are increasingly anxious to add more women to their boards, a process that can be fraught with controversy…. But for all the hand-wringing,” a recent study from the Wharton School found that “companies do not perform any better—or any worse—when they have women on their boards.” This is “the research diversity experts don’t want you to read.”
Tags: Anxious, Boards, Controversy, Diversity, Experts, Hand-wringing, Performance, Research, Stakeholders, Wharton, Women
Financial Times (August 15)
“US boardrooms are older, more male and filled with longer-serving directors than their European counterparts…. Directors of large and midsize US companies are four years older, on average, than European directors and almost twice as likely to be over the age of 65.”
Bloomberg (May 31)
“Recent scandals at Takata (deadly airbags) and Toshiba (dodgy accounting), and Sharp’s ongoing angling for a government rescue when it should be shedding unprofitable businesses, are a reminder of how far Japan still needs to go.” Despite recent governance reforms, “Japan remains 30 years behind its peers in how its companies are run. Corporate Japan still indulges in cross-shareholdings and permits itself male-dominated boards, and the country’s timid media does little to hold it to account.” Still, progress is being made. “Some companies are starting to display the behavior Abe wants, and for which” overseas fund managers have “been agitating.”
Tags: Abe, Accounting, Airbags, ata, Boards, Cross-shareholdings, Fund managers, Governance, Japan, Media, Reforms, Sharp, Toshiba, Unprofitable
Financial Times (November 27)
Since 2010, chairmen have been required by the UK Code on Corporate Governance to personally report on how the principles relating to the role and effectiveness of the board are being applied. Yet, the “chairmen of FTSE 350 companies are failing to take responsibility for corporate governance, with half making no mention of the issue in their annual report statements according to a review by Grant Thornton.”
Tags: Annual reports, Boards, Chairmen, Corporate governance, FTSE 350, UK
The Guardian (November 3)
Looking at ways to strengthen corporate governance in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron says it’s important “to make sure non-executive directors on boards are not the usual sort of rotating list of men patting each other’s backs and increasing the level of remuneration. I want to see more women in Britain’s boardrooms, which I think would have a thoroughly good influence.”
Looking at ways to strengthen corporate governance in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron says it’s important “to make sure non-executive directors on boards are not the usual sort of rotating list of men patting each other’s backs and increasing the level of remuneration. I want to see more women in Britain’s boardrooms, which I think would have a thoroughly good influence.”
Tags: Boards, Cameron, Directors, Governance, UK
Financial Times (February 23)
In the UK, just 12.5% of FTSE 100 board positions are filled by women. Lord Davies is recommending the government take measures to double this figure by 2015. The measures will likely be non-binding, rather than the rigid quota systems adopted by Norway, France and Spain. The Financial Times urges companies to “take voluntary targets seriously,” calling on the chairmen of all-male boards to “explain in their annual report why they find this acceptable” and on investors to “press male, middle-aged boards.”
In the UK, just 12.5% of FTSE 100 board positions are filled by women. Lord Davies is recommending the government take measures to double this figure by 2015. The measures will likely be non-binding, rather than the rigid quota systems adopted by Norway, France and Spain. The Financial Times urges companies to “take voluntary targets seriously,” calling on the chairmen of all-male boards to “explain in their annual report why they find this acceptable” and on investors to “press male, middle-aged boards.”
