SEC Chair Jay Clayton basically told investors “nothing to see here” when five KPMG partners were indicted for unlawfully using prior knowledge of confidential information from their regulator, the PCAOB. Francine McKenna quoted VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow in an article for Marketwatch: Corporate governance expert Nell Minow, the vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, said…
Category: Uncategorized
SEC Wants Comments on Its Agenda
The Securities and Exchange Commission has published a draft strategic plan and inviting comments. The first goal they list is “Focus on the long-term interests of our Main Street investors.” The use of this term is a bit mystifying. The SEC knows better than anyone that most “Main Street” investors entrust their money to financial…
Bogus Corporate Funded “Study” Purports to Show that Shareholder Proposals Are Contrary to Shareholder Interest
Here’s a tip from a long-time Washington DC lawyer: the more folksy or patriotic the name of the group, the more likely that it is funded by people who are promoting exactly the opposite of what it is trying to pretend to be. And thus we have the Main Street Investors Coalition, which bills itself…
Do Market Reactions to CEO Deaths Tell Us Anything Useful about CEO Pay?
Tom Gosling writes: So what is a CEO really worth, and can that ever be £4m a year? Two rather morbid papers shed light on the question by looking at the market reaction to sudden CEO deaths. Many methods for looking at the impact of CEOs on company performance suffer from the problem that it…
IRRCi Research Paper Competition 2018
The Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRCi) has opened its seventh annual competition for research that examines the interaction between the real economy and investment theory. Practitioners and academics are invited to submit research papers by Friday, October 19, 2018, for consideration by a blue-ribbon panel of judges with deep finance and investment experience. Two…
To Absolutely No One’s Surprise, Directors Think they Are Doing Fine in Setting CEO Pay
We are shocked, shocked, at the findings of a completely superfluous new study showing that directors think they are paying CEOs fairly because it is a really, really challenging job. Fortune 250 directors strongly agree that CEOs in their industry have “specific skills that are extremely hard to replicate,” rating this statement a 7.5 on…
Netflix Revolutionizes Board Meetings
Beyond PowerPoint — making meetings meaningful, and integrating the board with the company’s operations and executives at Netflix: At most companies, directors have a less complete understanding of the company than executives because of their limited exposure to day-to-day activities. The format of the information they receive does little to overcome this information deficit. The…
CII on Unequal Voting Shares and Index Funds
The Council of Institutional Investors has written an exceptionally thoughtful reply to MSCI on the issue of dual class stock and index funds, in response to MSCI’s Consultation on the Treatment of Unequal Voting Structures in the MSCI Equity Indexes. The Council of Institutional Investors (CII) is committed to the alignment of economic rights and…
Musk hasn’t earned right to earnings-day silence like Buffett, Bezos
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow is quoted in this CNBC article about quarterly calls. Nell Minow, a Tesla shareholder and well-known investor watchdog, said she is not a huge fan of the quarterly calls. She said they “play into and perpetuate overfocus on both short-term numbers and the relevance of Wall Street analysts who try…
Activist/Impact Investing: Zevin Asset Management
Zevin Asset Management issued a new report about its activist initiatives. An excerpt (emphasis added): When Congress failed to respond to the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the conversation shifted to whether financial companies would act to address risks. In March, Zevin Asset Management joined with other investors to denounce gun violence and define the…
PWC: Board Members 50 and Younger
Board members are often described as “pale, male, and stale,” but that may finally be changing. Wynn Resorts has named three women to its board, including VEA favorite Betsy Atkins, following sexual abuse allegations against co-founder and CEO Steve Wynn. And today PWC is releasing its new “census” of board members who are 50 and…
Nell Minow: How Only Corporate Governance Can Save the World
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow spoke to students at Sarah Lawrence College about the challenges and opportunities of corporate governance.
