Longtime proxy solicitor John Wilcox has submitted one of the most thoughtful comment on the SEC’s proxy roundtable issues. No one is more familiar with the issues raised by the current complexity of the system that provides information and voting mechanics. An excerpt: The failures of the proxy system have traditionally been blamed on back-office…
Jeremy Grantham’s $1 Billion Plan to Fight Climate Change – Bloomberg
Terrifying an audience is one of Jeremy Grantham’s specialties. The legendary investor, co-founder of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO), is famous for predicting doom. And he’s famous for being right, with a remarkable record of spotting investment bubbles before they pop, notably the 2000 tech crash and 2008 financial crisis.These days, the topic of Grantham’s…
Looking at wealth management through a “gender lens”
Andrew Behar, head of As You Sow, a San Francisco Bay-area shareholders advocacy group, said putting women in positions of power is simply good for business.“It really creates a better culture that’s going to reduce risk. That’s going to attract the best and the brightest talent,” he said.Behar’s organization offers a free online tool that…
Corporate boards are diversifying. The C-suite isn’t. – The Washington Post
Large companies — those worth $5 billion or more — appointed nearly three times as many women as men to their boards of directors during the second and third quarters last year, showing just how eager they are to diversify their governance teams and comply with mounting pressure for equality. “The more women board directors…
Govt compiles guidelines for ESG investments – The Japan News
The government will soon release new guidelines it has compiled to attract ESG (environmental, social and governance) investments from overseas.In ESG investments, investors choose companies based on factors such as the company tackling or having a good record on environmental and social issues, such as efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions, and corporate governance.The guidelines,…
Canadian Pension Steps Up Gender Board Diversity Advocacy | Chief Investment Officer
The C$368.3 billion ($270.6 billion) Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is looking to improve the gender balance of public company boards with its new Global Gender Diversity Voting Practice. Under the new policy, CPPIB will vote against the chair responsible for director nominations at the public companies it invests in if the board has…
The Prescience of 5% of Investors: A Monsanto Case Study
Even though a proposal receives only a fraction of shareholder support, it may still be the best available opportunity to bring more foresight to investors, board, and management on an issue that may eventually prove costly to a company. Only a small portion of investors may be exercising prescience on risk management or governance issues…
SOX Internal Controls Provision Creates Investor Value After All
[I]n the longstanding controversy over 404(b), the voice of one constituency has been conspicuous by its absence — and ironically, it’s the very group the regulation supposedly protects: namely the investment community. Whether the provision actually holds value to investors has remained unclear.Now, the January issue of the The Accounting Review, an American Accounting Association journal, includes the…
Qatar Stock Exchange Launches Its ESG Platform
Qatar Stock Exchange is pleased to announce the launch of its online ‘Qatar Stock Exchange Sustainability and ESG Platform’. This platform is designed to accelerate the objectives of the QSE Guidance on ESG reporting launched in December 2016 to support listed companies report on key Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) indicators. The online ESG platform allows…
How to rescue the global climate change agenda | Financial Times
The depressing reality about climate change is that we could solve the problem, at manageable cost, but are failing to do so. This failure is due to a mixture of blindness and self-deception. The blindness comes from those, such as US president Donald Trump, who deny the reality of climate change. The self-deception comes from…
