Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) opened its comment period for their 2012 proxy voting policies. Institutional investors, corporate issuers, and governance market participants are invited to provide feedback on ISS’ policy updates until October 31. According to Martha Carter, ISS’ Head of Global Research, ISS firmly believes that incorporating multiple views on corporate governance issues is critical for effective policy formulation. The […]
Tag Archives | research
GMI & Si2 Offer Combined ESG Proxy Research
James McRitchie, October 11, 2011 ,
GMI and Si2 announced a strategic partnership to provide seamless subscription access, account management and special pricing to the firms’ ESG Board Briefing Research, Shareholder Proposal Analysis, and Executive Pay Scorecards. The combination of GMI’s compensation analysis with Si2’s expert insights into key environmental and social issues and proposal analysis may create a vital new […]
Which Law Classes?
James McRitchie, August 25, 2011 ,
A George Washington Law School survey that asked alumni which elective courses had proven the most useful to them and which electives they wish they had taken. Here are the top 3 ranked courses on usefulness: (more…)
Slight Shift Away from Independent Directors in India
James McRitchie, August 25, 2011 ,
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…)
Students Don't Know the Grammar of Google
James McRitchie, August 25, 2011 ,
The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project — a series of studies conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, and Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of (more…)
Leave it to Delaware: Why Congress Should Stay out of Corporate Governance
James McRitchie, August 21, 2011 ,
The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law recently announced their hosting of the 27th Annual Francis G. Pileggi Distinguished Lecture in Law with the above topic by Professor Jill E. Fisch. The lecturer is a leading voice in the field of corporation law, and the lecture provides the Delaware Bar, particularly the members of the bench on both […]
Review: Business Ethics and Corporate Sustainability
James McRitchie, August 16, 2011 ,
Business Ethics and Corporate Sustainability contains fourteen essays examining mainstream business models with the aim of designing more sustainable systems with regard to corporate responsibility issues, such as the environment and human rights, while reducing overall risk profiles and increasing legitimacy. Christopher J. Cowton, for example, examines the moral status of corporations, their collective responsibility […]
Stakeholder Engagement Improves Valuation
James McRitchie, August 6, 2011 ,
Wharton Professor of Management Witold Henisz and two co-authors researched the role that stakeholder events played in companies’ efforts to maximize profits. Their paper, Spinning Gold: The Financial Returns to External Stakeholder Engagement, found the value of stakeholder relationships worth twice as much as the value of physical (more…)
Low Risk Boards
James McRitchie, August 2, 2011 ,
News Corp got Andrew Dominguez and Eben Esterhuizen to thinking about why boards fail. They came up with the following: No Repercussions: Shareholder lawsuits don’t pose much of a threat to an incompetent board. Most U.S. companies incorporate in Delaware, where state laws exempt board members from financial liability for their actions. Poor Data: Some boards receive […]
Corporate Transactions Handbook: A Deal Structure Primer — Reviewed
James McRitchie, July 25, 2011 ,
The Corporate Transactions Handbook by Lawrence Hsieh is an annually supplemented legal guide designed to help attorneys, bankers and, I would add, boardmembers, to become fully acquainted with the major legal issues related to a variety of corporate transactions in the most popular practice areas. One unusual characteristic of the book, especially for a legal handbook […]
What Would Proxy Access Look Like if Done Right?
James McRitchie, July 22, 2011 ,
The Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce made their case and the Court found the SEC rulemaking on proxy access arbitrary and capricious “for having failed once again… to adequately assess the economic effects of a new rule.” The SEC rules certainly didn’t come out the way Les Greenberg and I envisioned when we petitioned […]
Call for Papers on Institutional Investors & Sustainability
James McRitchie, July 8, 2011 ,
I’m on the editorial advisory board of the Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability series of books to be published by Emerald and so am helping them scour the world for contributing authors. The next book in the series will be edited by Dr. Suzanne Young, Associate Professor, La Trobe University, Australia, and Professor Stephen Gates, […]
Test Your Knowledge
James McRitchie, June 29, 2011 ,
A roundup of academic research from the world of IR studies via IR Papers: Quiz edition, 29 Jun 2011. I missed 3 out of 9 questions but guessed at several.
Regulatory Reforms on Board Composition Have Been a Plus
James McRitchie, June 29, 2011 ,
New research from Cesare Fracassi of the Department of Finance at the University of Texas at Austin and Geoffrey Tate of the Department of Finance at the University of California, Los Angeles finds that board composition should be a continuing target of regulatory reforms. Our results suggest that having directors with external network ties to the CEO may undermine […]
Post-Modern Portfolio Theory: IRRC Research Award Available
James McRitchie, June 17, 2011 ,
The IRRC Institute announced a competition for research that examines the interaction of the real economy with investment theory. Two papers – one academic and one practitioner – will receive the new “IRRC Institute Research Award” along with a $10,000 award. Of course, we would like both prizes to go to CorpGov.net readers. One of […]
Clowns, Annual Election of Directors & ACGI
James McRitchie, May 23, 2011 ,
Like many, I read that a proposal at McDonalds to halt marketing to kids, retire Ronald McDonald, and report on links between fast food and children’s health, failed… winning only 6% of shares voted. Every change has to start somewhere. However, I also learned from a reliable source that a proposal submitted by Florida SBA, with the […]
Corporate Valuation
James McRitchie, May 3, 2011 ,
From Enron to Lehman Brothers and the subprime financial disaster, we’ve seen the worst decade ever in my lifetime for equities, down 3.3%. Is it time to start stuffing our money into the mattress or is it time to learn something about corporate valuation from two experts? Corporate Valuation for Portfolio Investment: Analyzing Assets, Earnings, […]
Review: Presenting to Boards, a Second Opinion
James McRitchie, April 13, 2011 ,
Ralph Ward publishes a great little newsletter with quick bites of information for corporate directors. His Boardroom Insider is one of the few publications I always read cover to cover. (It helps that it is usually about 4-6 pages.) In the latest issue, among other articles, he reviews Julie Garland McLellan’s Presenting to Boards. I also reviewed […]
Corporate Governance and the Business Life Cycle
James McRitchie, March 23, 2011 ,
Corporate Governance and the Business Life Cycle (Corporate Governance in the New Global Economy), Igor Filatotchev (Editor) Most of the empirical literature on corporate governance is rooted in agency theory. While the principle-agent relationship and monitoring play a central role, governance is also concerned with entrepreneurship and contextual issues. The editor has chosen a good […]
Global Research on Shareowner Activism
James McRitchie, November 1, 2010 ,
Corporate Governance: An International Review has been one of our “stakeholders” from the beginning. The July issue, which I just got around to reading, provides excellent articles around the general theme of research on shareholder action. Antecedents of Shareholder Activism in Target Firms: Evidence from a Multi-Country Study, by William Q. Judge, Ajai Gaur, and […]
CorpGov News Bites
James McRitchie, August 19, 2010 ,
CalPERS. A report from consultant Wilshire Associates found that activist involvement by CalPERS increased returns at many of the 142 “Focus List” companies. Prior to the pension’s involvement, the companies’ returns averaged 83.3% below their various benchmarks; afterward they yielded returns 12.7% above the benchmarks. Although the cumulative 12.7% is not as high as past results, their corporate governance program […]
His Lips Are Moving: Deception During Conference Calls
James McRitchie, August 17, 2010 ,
Back in July I posted a question on Compiled Audio/Video Files of Conference Calls: Does anyone know of a resource that contains video and audio files for company conference calls, annual meetings, etc.? I was following up on the potential next phase Stanford University researchers could take in their study of lying CEOs, Detecting Deceptive Discussions in […]
A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis
James McRitchie, January 20, 2010 ,
On December 31, 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ameriquest Mortgage and Countrywide Financial spent respectively $20.5 million and $8.7 million in political donations, campaign contributions, and lobbying activities from 2002 through 2006 to defeat of anti-predatory lending legislation. Such anecdotal evidence suggests that the political influence of the financial industry contributed to the […]
Inside the Black Box
James McRitchie, October 30, 2009 ,
The Modern Firm, Corporate Governance and Investment (New Perspectives on the Modern Corporation), edited by Per-Olof Bjuggren and Dennis C. Mueller, explores developments in the theory of the firm, as well as how ownership structure and institutional frameworks impact performance. Below, I look at a small sample of the contributions contained in this stimulating reader. As […]
Rights of Public Shareholders
James McRitchie, March 9, 2009 ,
Lawrence E. Mitchell just published a very thoughtful paper, The Legitimate Rights of Public Shareholders. He argues that shareholders don’t contribute capital to finance industrial production but are, instead, net consumers. Since their investment incentives "significantly distort the behavior of corporate managers," leading CEOs to value stock price at the expense of long-term business health, […]
They Lie to the SEC Without Consequence
James McRitchie, February 15, 2009 ,
Andrea Romi, a doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business, examined the SEC filings of 309 companies that received notice from the Environmental Protection Agency between 1996 and 2005 that they should expect to pay at least $100,000 in fines – the minimum amount required for disclosure by SEC […]
January 2009 Special News Supplement: Directors Forum 2009
James McRitchie, January 30, 2009 ,
The conference opened with a great dinner and a fascinating keynote speech by Jim Chanos, founder and managing partner of Kynikos Associates, the world’s biggest short-seller. In introducing him, conference co-host Larry Stambaugh proudly held up a copy of the Financial Times from two days earlier that had Chanos’ picture not only above the fold […]