Golden Peacock Award applications due August 31, 2019. Today, Boards are expected to focus on improving their effectiveness—not just their compliance, but also Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance for long term sustainability and making their companies investor friendly. Boards also require frameworks for optimizing board engagement and performance, enhancing the contribution of individual board […]
A new report from the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) underlines the risks posed to investors by a corporate structure called a variable interest entity (VIE). Sixty two percent of Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges use a VIE, including internet giants Sina, Baidu, Alibaba and JD.com. U.S. exchanges are experiencing a surge of […]
The India Proxy Season 2017 came to an end on September 30th. InGovern collated meeting details of 1,502 companies. I do very little to cover the India proxy season, so welcome this informative report from InGovern, India’s first independent corporate governance research and advisory firm. Downloaded a pdf of the report, India Proxy Season 2017 (more…)
Related Party Transaction Defeated at India-Based Raymond According to a recent report by InGovern, primarily focused on India, Raymond, in its AGM on 5th June, proposed a contentious related party transaction where it wanted to sell one of its prime properties to its Chairman and some of his relatives. As bad as things have gotten […]
Research Assistant Vacancy for a Project on Corporate Governance Applications for the post of research assistants are invited from the students who are passionate about contemporary issues in corporate governance. Work is remunerated with provision for performance based bonus and other referral opportunities at the end of the tenure. Assignment will begin from 17th April & will […]
Board Evaluation Practices in India: Background CimplyFive Corporate Secretarial Services Pvt. Ltd. (CimplyFive), pioneer in offering research and technology based solutions for compliance with the Companies Act 2013, and InGovern Research Services Pvt. Ltd. (InGovern), India’s first proxy advisory and a premier corporate governance research and advisory company, released their report Board Evaluation Practices in […]
What is corporate governance? It is a process set up for the firms based on certain systems and principles by which a company is governed. The guidelines provided ensure that the company is directed and controlled in a way so as to achieve the goals and objectives to add value to the company and also […]
We last explored the topic of gender diversity on boards, in particular the underrepresentation of women on them, late in 2012, but much has happened globally on the subject since then. More companies have adopted regulation on the issue that range from “comply-or-explain” rules to quotas for the percentage of women on boards. A 2014 Grant Thornton […]
Cairn India is an oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in Gurgaon, India. It is a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources. Cairn India is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in India. InGovern, India’s first independent proxy advisory and corporate governance research firm. reports that Cairn is giving loan of […]
Guest post from Shriram Subramanian, founder of InGovern Research Services with the objective of facilitating shareholder activism by institutional investors and thereby enhancing corporate governance in India. Proxy Advisory Services, Corporate Governance Research, Risk Monitoring, and Proxy Services. India’s SEBI, through a circular dated March 24th, 2014, released a new set of disclosure guidelines to be followed by mutual funds. These […]
I don’t follow corporate governance in India as much as I would like but this video explains some recent reforms too important to ignore. To exhort listed companies and their top executives to follow ‘good business practices’, regulator Sebi cleared new corporate governance norms that require them to justify CEO salaries, put in place whistle-blower […]
A recent report by InGovern Research Services analyzes patterns in the resolutions proposed by Indian listed companies in the just concluded 2013 proxy voting season. The data has been collated and analyzed from a coverage universe of 585 companies forming part of the S&P 500 and BSE 500 indices, which represent over 95% of the market […]
Importance of Proxy Advisory Firms in Indian Capital Markets Shriram Subramanian, the Founder and MD of InGovern Research Services, in a recent interview with “Report Insights” highlighted the importance of proxy advisory firms in Indian capital markets. The extracts of the interview can be read in InGovern’s monthly publication: Governance Watch – December 2012 Newsletter (more…)
I was delighted to see that one of the stocks in my portfolio, Infosys ($INFY), has been ranked #1 in corporate governance by IR Global Rankings (“IRGR”). (Infosys is number one for corporate governance practices: IR Global Rankings, The Economic Times, 12/13/2012) That sounds like quite an achievement. Unfortunately, when I tried to find more about […]
Abstracts from a few papers posted this month to the Social Science Research Newtork. Hall, Thomas W. and Jörgensen, Fredrik A., Ownership and Performance in Europe (2012). Forthcoming, Review of Business. The authors consider the relationship between performance and ownership concentration in a large number of publicly traded and privately held companies located in smaller […]
India’s InGovern Research Services Pvt. Ltd. “assists financial institutions and investors that have financial, investment or reputational exposure to public-listed companies in India by providing our clients with corporate governance reports, proxy analysis and proxy voting solutions.” Their recent report, Analysis of Mutual Funds Voting for 2011-12, finds little progress when it comes to mutual funds participating in […]
The following is a guest post by by Sonia Jaspal from her blog, Sonia Jaspal’s RiskBoard, originally posted on June 12, 2012. I’ve added a few links, a couple of ads and reformatted the post slightly. (more…)
To do more jumbo deals in a tougher world, Indian firms need to tackle a glaring area of weakness. This is their complex structures, which mean cash flows are spread thinly, and their dislike of issuing equity for fear of diluting their controlling shareholders. Both factors combined make it hard to marshal resources without resorting […]
I had run across InGovern before – it provides corporate governance research and proxy voting services regarding public companies in India – but Mohandas Pai backs corporate governance research start-up in the Hindu Business Line really caught my attention. (more…)
The Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat receives over 1,000 entries per year for various awards, from over 25 countries worldwide. Currently the Golden Peacock Awards Secretariat is inviting applications for the following Institutional awards for the year 2012 from Corporates, SMEs, Public & (more…)
If you know of good candidates for the Golden Peacock Awards, instituted by Institute of Directors in 1992, now is the time to get nominations in, since they are due September 14, 2011. Below are the categories: A. Golden Peacock Global Awards Sustainability Excellence in Corporate Governance B. Golden Peacock National Awards Climate Security Sustainability […]
Employees replaced their jackets with white tees imprinted with “India Against Corruption” slogan. On 24 August 2011, Bangroleans formed a 17-kilometer human chain on outer ring road to protest against corruption. Finally, the middle class Indians have discarded their cloak of apathy. Passion, enthusiasm and commitment to change the system is replacing cynicism, skepticism and […]
Quality independent directors are hard to find today. Ask Azim Premji. India’s third-largest IT company, Wipro, is about to join the horde of companies violating Sebi norms by keeping independent directors beyond the suggested nine-year maximum tenure. After the Storm: The Unregulated Effect of a Corporate Governance Crisis (more…)
Boards have become larger but controlling for other things, less independent (have fewer independent directors) after the crisis. Much of this seems to be the result of a “supply shock” in which independent directors have become more aware of the risks associated with board positions. In the three weeks of January 2009 after the Satyam […]
A new proxy vote analysis service, InGovern Corporate Governance Platform, allows institutional investors to analyze various companies, follow the agendas of shareholder meetings, exercise votes and collaborate with other investors. Research based on “objective criteria” – Governance Radar – is also embedded into the platform, according to a press release from Bangalore. This is a […]
Companies Bill 2009 proposes to introduce the concept of class action suits for the first time in India, which would empower investors to sue a company for “oppression and mismanagement” and claim damages. Among other things, it also proposes to tighten the laws for raising money from the public and seeks to prohibit insider trading […]
‘The reluctance of family-owned firms to open their equity to outside shareholders has to some extent constrained the development of the capital markets in the Middle East,’ says Alissa Koldertsova, a policy analyst at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Examples are provided from several locations in Asia. For example: Gome Electrical […]
The government notified 35 accounting standards with a view to update Indian accounting norms in line with the global audit practice IFRS. The companies, however, will be given time to adjust to the new accounting standards as government has now deferred the implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) beyond April 1 this year. […]
The recent two day International Conference on Competition Law that concluded in New Delhi found that governments that work too close to big business protect old technology and prolong recession. In times of recession businesses plead for protective measures to cushion them from aggressive competition. Receding demand forces them to cut jobs and add to […]
Sonia Gandhi Acknowledges Corruption Problem In India « Sonia Jaspal’s RiskBoard. Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Congress President during her speech at Teen Murti House on the 10th Indira Gandhi Conference titled ”An Indian Social Democracy: Integrating Markets, Democracy and Social Justice,” acknowledged the problem of corruption and the moral challenges facing Indian society. “This is not a matter […]
Devdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West — and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about God, death and heaven help us consistently misunderstand one another. Chevron’s “We Agree” Ad Campaign Environmental and human rights activists have revealed the various leaks that permitted them […]
Indian IT firms are witnessing a significant jump in attrition levels. Retention has become a key challenge. Several IT firms are set to implement Employee stock option plans (ESOPs), reports Bibhu Ranjan Mishra from the Business Standard. Infosys discontinued its ESOP policy in May 2003, saying “the employees are not keen on it.” However, in […]
Opinion: Business to Blame for Anti-Business Mood, Marty Robins, Special to AOL News, 7/8/10. Where management was utterly disengaged from the business at hand, is it any wonder the public, and lawmakers, are demanding more regulation of the economy… resistance to good-faith efforts to improve governance by bolstering management oversight doesn’t endear business to society. […]
The governing board of Western Companies has traditionally been viewed as the owners eyes and ears, ensuring that company executives take prudent risks to optimize investor value and engage in no self-serving behavior or malfeasance while doing so. But drawing on the broad sense of mission and purpose that defines the India Way, Indian directors […]
Shubi Arora begins a three part report on the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) White Paper on Corporate Governance in India. The need for improvement in Indian Corporate Governance Practices: Part I, 4/12/2010. It concluded that while India has enacted numerous reforms in corporate governance, especially in the area of company boards, independent directors, and […]