Hot Issues Archives

Conflicts of interest, human capital and investor confidence concerns dog Sports Direct

In a surprise change of PR last Friday, (26 August 2016) Sports Direct announced that it would hold a public open day to coincide with its AGM on 7th September at its premises in Shirebrook. The event is said to …

UK’s Executive Pay Working Group releases final recommendations

The Executive Remuneration Working Group, supported by the UK’s Investment Association, has produced 10 recommendations aimed at regaining the public’s trust on executive pay, simplifying the pay structures of top company bosses and improving the alignment of their interests with …

The Institute of Directors hopes framework will improve director quality

With a backdrop of damning reports from MPs published last week on the demise of the retailer BHS and on poor working practices at Sports Direct, which both identified weak corporate governance as partly to blame for company failures, …

US business leaders call for backing of “common sense corporate governance principles”

A group of 13 US and Canadian fund managers, pension funds and company bosses have taken the unprecedented step of endorsing a set of corporate governance principles in a bid to quell rising unease and conflict around US governance standards.…

Investors & companies “in the dark over value of the workforce”

Understanding the value of a company’s workforce is important for investors, and companies should improve their reporting on this and be able to link this reporting to their wider company strategy and business model, according to the Pensions and Lifetime …

Shareholder haircuts: ECJ ruling backs Slovenian investors

The European Commission gave the government permission to provide state aid for this restructuring – which followed the 2007 global banking crisis. However, a group of investors – the subordinated bondholders – did not receive compensation following the nationalisation of …

US investors and companies are engaging more and seeing value in corporate governance

Institutional investors in the US are increasingly viewing corporate governance as more than just a compliance exercise but also about an ownership responsibility tied to investment value and risk mitigation, according to Ernst & Young’s (EY) analysis of the 2016 …

UK’s new prime minister sets out her #corpgov #ESG stall

In sharp contrast to US Republican moves to unwind the Dodd Frank corporate governance reforms introduced after the global financial crisis, the UK’s newly appointed Conservative party leader and soon to be prime minister, Theresa May, has signalled strong support …

US Republicans continue their assault on shareholder rights and ESG

The US House of Representatives last week voted on a series of proposals designed to dismantle key aspects of Dodd Frank reforms. After June’s vote to propose regulation of proxy advisors and rescind the conflict minerals rule, the latest …

As board diversity stalls, new push to breakdown barriers and improve pipeline

After the initial push to increase board diversity over the past five years, progress appears to have slowed according to two reports published by the UK government and Cranfield School of Management.

The UK government has therefore launched a review …