South Africa’s PIC pension fund adjusts its corporate governance priorities (emphasis added): More than half of the companies in which the PIC has a substantial investment ignore its views on the need for independent auditors.Almost half of them also ignore its view on what is, or is not, an acceptable remuneration policy, and a substantial…
Tag: institutional investors
Brunel’s Stewardship Policy
We recommend Brunel’s excellent stewardship policy as a model for institutional investors everywhere. Stewardship is defined as the job of taking care of something, such as a company or property. As investors, we use the term assets. Brunel is committed to responsible stewardship and seeks to contribute to the ‘care’ of all the assets under…
‘Quiet diplomacy’ the weapon of choice for passive funds | Financial Times
About a fifth of the freely traded shares of the US equity market are now owned by index-tracking funds and passive institutional mandates, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. This underlines the vital role played by the three largest managers in this space — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — in policing corporate standards.Larry Fink,…
SSGA’s Kumar warns companies on ESG progress | Corporate Secretary
Rakhi Kumar, global head of asset stewardship and ESG with State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), has warned that her firm’s patience is running out with portfolio companies that aren’t heeding the asset manger’s warnings on topics such as board diversity, refreshment and climate change.‘Given that we started talking about some of these issues in 2011,…
Mutual Fund Transparency and Corporate Myopia
We often hear that corporate executives believe the pressure to issue quarterly figures and guidance leads to over-emphasis on short-term returns. A new paper by Vikas Agarwal (Georgia State University), Rahul Vashishtha (Duke University), and Mohan Venkatachalam (Duke University) provides some welcome focus on another source of short-term pressure, the reporting requirements imposed on mutual…
Asset managers accused of grandstanding on Persimmon pay | Portfolio Adviser
Asset managers who slammed Persimmon pay packages this AGM season have been silent when questioned over their voting record at the UK housebuilder, which enabled executive remuneration to soar.<P><P>At this year’s AGM, held in April, 48.5% of shareholder votes were cast against the pay report, which sees chief executive Jeff Fairburn receive a whopping £75m.<P><P>But…
Felix Salmon: Index funds are not to blame for excessive CEO pay.
We have heard a lot of weird and convoluted theories about excessive CEO pay, but the one Felix Salmon takes on here may be the ultimate: Who is to blame for bloated CEO pay? Your favored answer to that question will tend to reflect your prior beliefs, which is why high pay is now being…
How Long-Term Investors Influence Corporate Behavior
Annotated opening paragraphs of an article on the impact of long-term investors in the MITSloan journal: In his recent letter to CEOs, Larry Fink, CEO and chairman of the mutual fund giant BlackRock Inc., based in New York City, repeated his call for organizations to share their strategies for creating sustainable value. He also added…
BlackRock turns up the pressure on gun makers – Mar. 2, 2018
BlackRock, calling the issue of gun manufacture and sales one of “tremendous urgency,” is engaging with its portfolio companies: It said it has already had “constructive discussions” with some of the companies. It plans to ask gun makers how they’ll deal with the reputation and legal risks associated with manufacturing civilian firearms, and if they…
How are Shareholder Votes and Trades Related?
Rutgers Assistant Professor Sophia Zhengzi writes: Are shareholder votes a sufficient form of voice that catalyzes trades across the board? Are shareholders’ votes and trades correlated? And do shareholders update their trading patterns based on the information conveyed by other investors’ votes? We address these questions by examining the relation between votes and volume at…
