Three directors of Kingspan, the company that made combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower, cashed in more than £6m in share options before allegations against the business were aired at the public inquiry into the disaster. Gene Murtagh, the chief executive of the Ireland-based company that made the Kooltherm-K15 foam boards used on the council…
Category: corporate governance
Warren, Carper, Baldwin, and Warner Form Corporate Governance Working Group to Fundamentally Reform the 21st Century American Economy
United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) announced the formation of a working group to develop legislative proposals and conduct oversight focused on fundamentally reforming corporate governance. Over the last 30 years, corporate profits have surged while the portion shared with labor has declined, resulting in…
Senate Group Working on Corporate Governance Proposals
United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) announced the formation of a working group to develop legislative proposals and conduct oversight focused on fundamentally reforming corporate governance. Over the last 30 years, corporate profits have surged while the portion shared with labor has declined, resulting in…
Antitrust law: The next stakeholder capitalism battleground? | Fortune
[S]ome reformers have called to replace the “consumer welfare” standard with “effective competition,” using antitrust to “protect” market participants throughout the supply chain, including workers. Others propose that enforcers seek “stakeholder remedies,” such as changes to corporate governance, as part of antitrust enforcement. Need to clear that merger? Fork over a few board seats to…
Henry Ford III Is Rising to Top of Dynasty in Deep Trouble
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow is quoted about the corporate governance concerns relating to family control of Ford Mother Company. The arrangement once again came under scrutiny at the annual meeting. A shareholder proposal to strip the family of its special class of stock and go to a one-share, one-vote arrangement garnered 35% support, up…
Nell Minow and Peggy Foran on Corporate Governance, ESG, and What Comes Next
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow appeared on NPR’s On Point program with Prudential’s Peggy Foran to talk about corporate governance today, what’s better and what’s not, ESG, and what comes next.
Board of tech group Inex to step down amid governance row
Big corporations are in favor of activism and engagement when they are investors. The entire board of tech group Inex will step down following pressure from some of its leading members, including Google and BT Ireland, arising from a corporate governance row. In an email to members shortly before Christmas, the company confirmed that three…
AT&T Sneaks Away Voting Rights With Coercive Buyback/Exchange Offer
We’ve got a sense of deja vu here. Back in the early 80’s companies tried to get the NYSE to approve coercive exchange offers of non- or limited-voting stock with a slightly higher return for shares with voting rights. We note that there is already such a security available for anyone who wants to buy…
New Paper: Asset Management, Index Funds, and Theories of Corporate Control
Matthew J. Mallow’s new paper on index funds: This paper seeks to ground the debate around asset managers, index funds and corporate control firmly in the practical context of the operation and regulation of asset managers. Acting on be- half of clients, asset managers are incentivized to monitor companies for long-term performance. As minority shareholders,…
Larker and Tayan Re-Discover the Governance Wheel
Stanford’s David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan have a new paper called Loosey-Goosey Governance: Four Misunderstood Terms in Corporate Governance in which they appear to think they’ve discovered what everyone has understood forever — that there are limits to structural solutions and that checklists of best practices are not especially helpful. We were very clear…
