All Boards & Shareholders articles – Page 19
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Blog
NYC Comptroller Expands Proxy Access Demands
On behalf of New York City’s public pension funds, Comptroller Scott Stringer has announced the expansion of an initiative that uses shareholder resolutions to pressure companies to adopt meaningful proxy access bylaws. In 2016, 72 companies will be asked to enact a 3 percent ownership threshold for the ability to ...
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Blog
Remember When David Bowie Went Wall Street on Us?
Image: In 1997, just before the music industry was about to be turned upside down by a Black Swan-level of remarkable circumstances, legendary rock artist David Bowie issued bonds on his future royalties, earning a handsome payday for himself, and managing to sidestep a financial cataclysm in the making. Was ...
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Why All the Fuss Over Culture?
We hear a great deal about corporate culture and its relevance to such matters as internal control, risk management, whether to pursue a merger or acquisition, and the effect on regulators’ investigations and enforcement actions. It seems we can’t get away from hearing about it, and we begin to wonder ...
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Article
SEC Pushed Toward Creating New Board Composition Disclosures
Image: As businesses become more risk-prone and globalized, investors are demanding that fresh blood be infused into boards. So too are legislators with a desire to leverage SEC disclosures as a tool to bolster the ranks of directors and embed cyber-security knowledge. These efforts place a focus on board composition, ...
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Report: CEOs Already Raked in More Than the Average Employee
By the end of the first Tuesday of 2016, FTSE 100 chief executives will have earned more than the average full-time employee, said a report released by U.K. think-tank High Pay Centre. The survey said that chief executives were paid out roughly £4.96 million a year, while the average U.K. ...
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Blog
For 2016, a Mix of Trends Both Old and New
A look back at 2015 predictions from CW columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik—where they went right and where they veered off track. Also, their predictions for the coming year: among other things, a separation of the board chair and chief executive officer roles; more attention paid to environmental issues ...
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Blog
Succession Planning: A Priority for Bank Chiefs in 2016
Standard Chartered has scored big by hiring HSBC veteran Simon Cooper to serve as the London-based company’s corporate and institutional banking head but, according to the Financial Times, Cooper’s departure from HSBC may be a sign the exec has grown impatient waiting to take over the British bank’s reigns. Cooper, ...
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Blog
Accenture Acquires Beacon Consulting Group
Accenture, a global professional services company, has acquired Beacon Consulting Group, a consulting firm for the North American asset management community. This acquisition significantly expands Accenture’s asset management consulting capabilities and enhances its ability to help global investment managers, institutional investors, and asset servicers gain an edge in increasingly competitive ...
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Blog
Report Card on This Year, and Governance Predictions for 2016
As one year closes and another begins, so does the cycle of talk on what corporate governance issues will challenge Corporate America in 2016. Inside, columnist Richard Steinberg reviews what he thought the big issues of 2015 would be (cyber-risk, shareholder proxy access, CEO succession, etc.), and how those subjects—and ...
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Blog
National Society of Compliance Professionals Elects New Chair
The National Society of Compliance Professionals (NSCP), a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to serving and supporting compliance professionals in the financial services industry, has elected Lynn McGrade as chair for the upcoming year.
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Blog
Prepping the Audit Committee for 2016 Proxy Season
The 2016 proxy season will bring much scrutiny as usual, but two developments in corporate governance—the new COSO framework, and the Audit Quality Indicator project—might help committees manage the workload better. Inside, columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik review how compliance officers can use those tools to help audit committees ...
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Blog
ISS, Glass Lewis Revamp Proxy Season Policies
Prominent proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis have updated their voting policies for upcoming shareholder meetings and are looking ahead to 2017 proxies by clarifying their stance on director overboarding, unilateral board actions, problematic pay practices, and the responsibilities of directors for oversight of environmental and social issues ...
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Blog
Preparing for a Busy, and Political, Proxy Season
The 2015 annual meeting season was a whirlwind, driven by surprise voting outcomes and regulatory flip-flops on proxy access. The coming year could be even tougher, because presidential politics promises to turbocharge the corporate governance debate. This week, columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik examine some of the likely issues ...
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Blog
ISS Details Proposed Policy Changes, Seeks Feedback
Institutional Shareholder Services has launched its 2016 benchmark voting policy consultation period. Policy topics for the U.S. market include unilateral amendments made by boards to company charters and bylaws without shareholder approval, director overboarding, and compensation at externally managed issuers. More inside.
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Blog
NACD: Boards Need Strategy to Align Short-Term, Long-Term Goals
A growing concern in governance circles is whether the desire to meet or beat quarterly earnings can be aligned with long-term business strategy. The National Association of Corporate Directors addresses that dilemma in a new report that urges boards to steer management to long-range planning efforts through compensation and incentive ...
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Blog
Supreme Court Asked to Consider No-Action Letters
As if the process for excluding shareholder proposals wasn’t confusing enough, now the Supreme Court could weigh in. Trinity Wall Street has petitioned it to review a 2014 appellate court ruling, which found that a proposal requiring that Walmart’s board review the retailer’s policy on gun sales encroached upon “ordinary ...
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Blog
The Painstaking Challenge of Corporate Governance in China
The world’s second-largest economy threw the rest of the world a huge curveball this summer, with crashing stock markets and unpredictable regulatory reactions. Better corporate governance might help, but the truth about China is this: Its institutions are still weak, efforts to improve them difficult. Inside, columnists Stephen Davis and ...
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Blog
ISS Posts Annual Policy Survey
Institutional Shareholder Services, a leading proxy advisory service, kicked off its annual global policy formulation process on Tuesday by releasing its 2016 proxy voting policy survey to institutional investors, corporate issuers, and corporate directors. The survey will be operational from Aug. 4 to 5 p.m. (ET) on Sept. 4.
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Blog
What ‘Improving Communication’ to Investors Really Means
The SEC is working now to draw up new rules for audit committee and executive compensation disclosure. Why? To make corporations more transparent with investors about what they already know. The thing is, Compliance Week columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik write, companies can start that better communication themselves. This ...
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Blog
Director-Investor Communication Is Coming. Here’s How to Do It
One trend to emerge from the 2015 proxy season is a push to bring investor groups and boards of directors into closer contact—perhaps even into direct communication. Yes, columnists Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik say, you can make such interactions work, and work effectively. Inside are their thoughts on how ...