Étiquette : Direction

Nouvelle étude sur les retombées des comportements activistes | Bebchuk


Les administrateurs de sociétés doivent être beaucoup plus informés des conséquences que les fonds activistes peuvent avoir sur la conduite des entreprises publiques (cotées).

Il plane un air de mystère, et un certain mutisme, sur la nature des opérations et sur les objectifs poursuivis par les investisseurs activistes.

Pourtant, même si le phénomène est de plus en plus répandu, on constate un manque flagrant de formation des administrateurs de sociétés sur les types d’arrangements recherchés par les activistes.

Les pionniers de la recherche dans ce domaine, Lucian Bebchuk* et ses collègues, viennent de publier un billet sur le site de Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, qui fait la lumière sur le comportement des investisseurs activistes.

Que recherchent les activistes ? Ils veulent convaincre les directions et les conseils d’administration que leurs préconisations conduiront à une meilleure valorisation de l’entreprise.

Ils souhaitent tirer parti des faiblesses de certaines organisations dans le but premier de faire profiter leurs investissements, tout en améliorant la rentabilité des entreprises qui ont des problèmes de gouvernance, de leadership et de vision stratégique.

Quels sont les résultats de la recherche des auteurs eu égard aux motivations, à la nature des arrangements ainsi qu’à leurs conséquences ?

L’étude montre que les négociations sur les modifications organisationnelles souhaitées, reliées au renouvellement du leadership et à la remise en question des opérations, sont difficiles à convenir.

Les fonds activistes préfèrent de loin arriver à des ententes sur la composition du conseil d’administration susceptible de favoriser les changements escomptés.

 

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « actionnaires activistes »
Les fonds activistes à l’assaut des grands groupes | Le Monde

 

L’étude indique que les modifications à la constitution du CA mènent souvent :

  1. au remplacement du PDG (CEO) ;
  2. à des paiements accrus aux actionnaires ;
  3. à une plus forte probabilité de vente ou de privatisation de l’entreprise.

 

Finalement, l’étude montre que les avantages obtenus par les actionnaires activistes ne se font pas au détriment des autres investisseurs. Également, le prix des actions est généralement à la hausse à la suite des négociations sur les arrangements.

Les auteurs dévoilent aussi les moyens utilisés par les fonds activistes pour arriver à leurs fins (« a look into the black box »).

Je suis personnellement convaincu que certaines conséquences non anticipées se produisent et que cette étude doit être mise en relation avec d’autres recherches, notamment celles du professeur Yvan Allaire**.

 

Afin de mettre en valeur de bonnes pratiques mises en places par des conseils d’administration des sociétés québécoises, le journal Les Affaires, en collaboration avec l’Institut des administrateurs de sociétés (IAS), le Collège des administrateurs de sociétés et l’Institut sur la gouvernance  (IGOPP), a tenu le 1er avril dernier une Grande soirée de la gouvernance. Durant cette soirée, le professeur Yvan Allaire, président exécutif du conseil d’administration de l’IGOPP a dévoilé en primeur une étude sur l’enjeu des investisseurs activistes et leurs conséquences pour les conseils d’administration.

 

Conclusions préliminaires de cette étude :

(1) Les fonds de couverture activistes ne sont pas des « super‐cracks » de la finance, ni de la stratégie, ni des opérations, comme certains semblent le croire (et eux s’évertuent à le faire croire) ;

(2) Leurs recettes sont connues, convenues et prévisibles et ne comportent jamais (ou presque) de perspectives de croissance ;

(3) Leur succès provient surtout de la vente des entreprises ciblées (ou de « spin‐offs ») ;

(4) L’appui important qu’ils reçoivent des fonds institutionnels est surprenant et malencontreux ;

(5) La gouvernance fiduciaire pratiquée depuis Sarbanes‐Oxley et la perte de confiance dans les conseils qui en a résulté leur ouvre toute grande la porte des entreprises.

 

Bonne lecture. Vos commentaires sont les bienvenus.

 

Dancing with Activists

 

We recently released a study, entitled Dancing with Activists, that focuses on “settlement” agreements between activist hedge funds and target companies. Using a comprehensive hand-collected data set, we provide the first systematic analysis of the drivers, nature, and consequences of such settlement agreements.

Our study identifies the determinants of settlements, showing that settlements are more likely when the activist has a credible threat to win board seats in a proxy fight. We argue that, due to incomplete contracting, settlements can be expected to contract not directly on the operational or leadership changes that activists seek but rather on board composition changes that can facilitate operational and leadership changes down the road. Consistent with the incomplete contracting hypothesis, we document that settlements focus on boardroom changes and that such changes are subsequently followed by increases in CEO turnover, increased payout to shareholders, and higher likelihood of a sale or a going-private transaction.

We find no evidence to support concerns that settlements enable activists to extract significant rents at the expense of other investors by introducing directors not supported by other investors or by facilitating “greenmail.” Finally, we document that stock price reactions to settlement agreements are positive and that the positive reaction is higher for “high-impact” settlements. Our analysis provides a look into the “black box” of activist engagements and contributes to understanding how activism brings about changes in its targets.

Below is a more detailed account of the analysis and findings of our study.

In August 2013, Third Point, the hedge fund led by Daniel Loeb, disclosed a significant stake in the auction house Sotheby’s, criticized the company for its poor governance and its failure to take advantage of a booming market for luxury goods, and called for the ouster of the company’s CEO. Third Point launched a proxy fight for board representation and both sides prepared for a contested election at the company’s upcoming annual meeting. However, the day before the scheduled annual shareholder meeting, the company’s board of directors and the activist fund entered into a settlement agreement in which Sotheby’s agreed to appoint three of the Third Point director candidates and Third Point agreed to discontinue the proxy fight. The settlement terms did not require the company to make any of the operational and executive changes that Third Point was seeking. However, ten months later, Sotheby’s announced the hiring of a new CEO, the appointment of a new board chairman, and a plan to return capital to its investors.

While such settlements used to be rare, they now occur with significant frequency, and they have been attracting a great deal of media and practitioner attention. Understanding settlement agreements is important for obtaining a complete picture of the corporate governance landscape and the role of activism within it. Using a comprehensive, hand-collected dataset of settlement agreements, we provide in this study the first systematic empirical investigation of activist settlements. We study the drivers of settlements, their growth over time, their impact on board composition, their consequences for the operational and personnel choices that targets make, and the stock market reaction accompanying them. We further study the aftermath of settlements in terms of CEO turnover, payouts to shareholders, M&A activity, and operating performance.

With the growing recognition of the importance of hedge fund activism, a large empirical literature on the subject has emerged (see Brav et al. (2015b) for a recent survey). This literature has studied the initiation of activist interventions—the time at which activists announce their presence, usually by filing Schedule 13(d) with the SEC after passing the 5% ownership threshold, and the stock market reactions accompanying such announcements. This literature has also studied extensively the changes in the value, performance and behavior of firms that take place during the years following activist interventions; among other things, researchers have studied the changes in Tobin’s Q, return on assets (ROA), payouts to shareholders, capital structure, likelihood of an acquisition, and accounting practices that ultimately follow activist interventions. But there has been limited empirical work on the “black box” in between—the channels through which activists’ influence is transmitted and gets reflected in targets’ economic outcomes. In particular, the determinants, nature and role of settlement agreements—and the cooperation between activists and targets that they introduce—have not been subject to a systematic empirical examination. We attempt to help fill this gap.

We begin by investigating the factors that determine the likelihood that an activist will be able to obtain a settlement agreement. Building on insights from the economics of settlements, we hypothesize that an activist will need to have a credible threat to win seats in a proxy fight to be able to extract a settlement agreement. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that the likelihood of a settlement agreement in general, and a “high-impact” settlement agreement involving a substantial change in company leadership, covaries with several factors that are associated with improved odds for the activist in winning board seats in a proxy fight.

We quantify the upward trend in activist settlements. In particular, we show that the unconditional likelihood of a settlement increased threefold from the time period 2000-2002 (3%) to the period 2003-2005 (9%), increased by another 56% during 2006-2008 (14%) and by 29% during 2009-2011 (18%). These results hold when controlling for target and activist characteristics. Consistent with the view that settlements require activists having a credible threat to win board seats in a proxy fight, we argue that the increase in the settlement rate was driven by the growing willingness of institutional investors and proxy advisors to support activists, which in turns strengthened the credibility of the activist’s threat to win seats in a contest.

Turning to the terms of settlements, we explain the cost and difficulty of entering into contractual agreements that specify ultimate outcomes—the types of changes in operations, strategy, payouts or executive personnel that activists often seek. We document that settlements indeed rarely stipulate directly such outcomes. Rather, activists commonly settle on changes in board composition. We demonstrate that settlements are a key channel through which activists bring about board changes and we investigate the nature of these changes, showing that they bring about an increase in the number of activist-affiliated and activist-desired directors, well-connected directors and decrease the number of old and long-tenured directors.

Why do activists settle on changes in board composition if their ultimate goal is in bringing about operational or personnel changes? We argue that introducing individuals into the boardroom who are sympathetic, or at least open to the changes sought by the activist, is an intermediary step that can facilitate and bring about such changes. Consistent with this view, we show that, while settlements generally do not specify an ouster of the CEO, settlements are followed by a considerable increase in CEO turnover and in the performance-sensitivity of CEO turnover in the years following the settlement. Thus, settlements often plant the seeds for a subsequent CEO removal that is more face-saving to the CEO and the incumbent directors than an immediate ouster would be. Similarly, while settlement agreements generally do not specify operational changes, we document that such changes do follow in subsequent years. Settlements are followed by increased payouts to shareholders, a higher likelihood of target firms being acquired, and improvements in ROA.

We also investigate concerns raised by practitioners and the media that settlements between activists and targets enable activists to extract rents at the expense of other shareholders who are not “at the table” when the settlement is negotiated. We examine two suggested channels for such rent extraction and find little evidence that settlements provide activists with significant rents at other shareholders’ expense. First, we find no evidence that settlements enable activists to put directors on the board who are not supported by other shareholders. Directors who enter the board through settlements do not receive less voting support at the following annual general meeting than incumbent directors or those activist directors who get on the board without a settlement. Second, we find little evidence that settlements produce a significant incidence of “greenmail” by getting the target to purchase shares from the activist at a premium to the market price; buybacks of activist shares occur in a very small fraction of settlement agreements and, when they do occur, they are typically executed at the market price.

Finally, we analyze the stock market reactions accompanying the announcement of a settlement agreement. Settlements are accompanied by positive abnormal stock returns. Furthermore, we find that the positive abnormal returns are especially large when the settlement is “high impact” in terms of introducing two or more new directors or providing for an immediate CEO turnover. This pattern is consistent with the view that the market welcomes the boardroom and leadership changes that activist settlements produce and inconsistent with the view that such changes can be expected to be disruptive and detrimental to other shareholders.

Our study is available for download here.

*Lucian Bebchuk is Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance, and Director of the Program on Corporate Governance, at Harvard Law School; Alon Brav is Professor of Finance at Duke University; Wei Jiang is Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School; and Thomas Keusch is Assistant Professor at the Erasmus University School of Economics. This post is based on their study, Dancing with Activists, available here. This study is part of the research undertaken by the Project on Hedge Fund Activism of the Program on Corporate Governance. Related Program research includes The Long-Term Effects of Hedge Fund Activism by Bebchuk, Brav and Jiang (discussed on the Forum here); and The Law and Economics of Blockholder Disclosure by Lucian Bebchuk and Robert J. Jackson Jr. (discussed on the Forum here).

**Yvan Allaire, Voir la publication « L’IGOPP dévoile une étude sur l’enjeu des investisseurs activistes et leurs conséquences pour les conseils », site de l’IGOPP.

 

Facteurs qui influencent la rémunération des dirigeants d’OBNL ?


Qu’est-ce qui influence la rémunération des dirigeants d’organisation sans but lucratif. C’est la question à laquelle Elizabeth K. Keating et Peter Frumkin ont tenté de répondre dans une recherche scientifique notoire, dont un résumé est publié dans la revue Nonprofit Quaterly.

L’établissement d’une juste rémunération dans toute organisation est un domaine assez complexe. Mais, dans les entreprises à but non lucratif, c’est souvent un défi de taille et un dilemme !

Lorsque l’on gère l’argent qui vient, en grande partie, du public, on est souvent mal à l’aise pour offrir des rémunérations comparables au secteur privé. Les comparatifs ne sont pas faciles à établir…

Cependant, il faut que l’organisation paie une rémunération convenable ; sinon, elle ne pourra pas retenir les meilleurs talents et faire croître l’entreprise.

Bien sûr, la situation a beaucoup évolué au cours des 30 dernières années. On conçoit plus facilement maintenant que les services rendus pour gérer de telles organisations doivent être rémunérés à leur juste valeur. Mais, le secteur des OBNL est encore dominé par des salaires relativement bas et par la contribution de généreux bénévoles…

 

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « rémunération dirigeants OBNL »
Publications de Gouvernance Expert – Gestion PME et OBNL

Contrairement à la plupart des entreprises privées, les OBNL rémunèrent leur personnel selon un salaire fixe. Cependant, les comparaisons avec le secteur privé ont amené plusieurs OBNL à offrir des rémunérations basées sur la performance (ex. : les résultats de la collecte de fonds, la compression des dépenses, les surplus dégagés).

Dans la plupart des OBNL, les augmentations de salaires des dirigeants demeurent des sujets chauds… très chauds, étant donné les moyens limités de ces organisations, la propension à faire appel au bénévolat et les contraintes liées aux missions sociales.

Les auteurs de l’étude ont développé trois hypothèses pour expliquer les comportements de rémunération dans le secteur des entreprises à but non lucratif :

  1. Les PDG qui gèrent des organisations de grandes tailles seront mieux rémunérés ;
  2. Les rémunérations des PDG d’OBNL ne seront pas basées sur la performance financière de leurs organisations ;
  3. Les rémunérations des PDG d’OBNL ne seront pas déterminées par la liquidité financière.

En résumé, les recherches montrent que les hypothèses retenues sont validées dans presque tous les secteurs étudiés. C’est vraiment la taille et la croissance de l’organisation qui sont les facteurs déterminants dans l’établissement des rémunérations des hauts dirigeants. Dans ce secteur, la bonne performance ne doit pas être liée directement à la rémunération.

La plupart des administrateurs de ces organisations ne sont pas rémunérés, souvent pour des raisons de valeurs morales. Cependant, je crois que, si l’entreprise en a les moyens, elle doit prévoir une certaine forme de rémunération pour les administrateurs qui ont les mêmes responsabilités fiduciaires que les administrateurs des entreprises privées.

Je crois personnellement qu’une certaine compensation est de mise, même si celle-ci n’est pas élevée. Les administrateurs se sentiront toujours plus redevables s’ils retirent une rémunération pour leur travail. Même si la rétribution est minimale, elle contribuera certainement à les mobiliser davantage.

Cette citation résume assez bien les conclusions de l’étude :

One final implication of our analysis bears on the enduring performance-measurement quandary that confronts so many nonprofit organizations. We believe that nonprofits may rely on organizational size to make compensation decisions, drawing on free cash flows when available, rather than addressing the challenge of defining, quantifying, and measuring the social benefits that they produce. Nonprofits typically produce services that are complex and that generate not only direct outputs but also indirect, long-term, and societal benefits. These types of services often make it difficult to both develop good outcome measures and establish causality between program activity and impact. In the absence of effective metrics of social performance and mission accomplishment, many organizations rely on other factors in setting compensation. Perhaps, once better measures of mission fulfillment are developed and actively implemented, nonprofits will be able to structure CEO compensation in ways that provide appropriate incentives to managers who successfully advance the missions of nonprofit organizations, while respecting the full legal and ethical implications of the nondistribution constraint.

Pour plus d’information concernant le détail de l’étude, je vous conseille de prendre connaissance des extraits suivants.

Bonne lecture !

What Drives Nonprofit Executive Compensation?

 

To test our first hypothesis, we relied on two variables: lagged total fixed assets and lagged total program expenses. We chose total fixed assets as a proxy for scale of operations and total program expenses as a measure of the annual budget.15 To test our second hypothesis, we developed two variables associated with pay-for-performance compensation: administrative efficiency and dollar growth in contributed revenue.16 To test our third hypothesis, we selected three variables that determine whether an organization is cash constrained or has free cash flows: lagged commercial revenue, liquid assets to expenses measure, and investment portfolio to total assets measure.17

Since the nonprofit industry is quite heterogeneous, we explored the compensation question in the major subsectors: arts, education, health, human services, “other,” and religion.18

Arts

The compensation of arts CEOs increases more rapidly relative to program expenses than in the other subsectors, and the remuneration of arts CEOs is negatively associated with commercial revenue share. This stands in contrast to the positive relation of this factor in the remaining subsectors.

Greater administrative efficiency, higher liquidity, and a more extensive endowment are associated with higher compensation, but generating additional contributions is not. Overall, the organizational-size variables explain a substantially greater proportion of the variation in compensation for arts CEOs than the other two factors combined.

Education

While arts executive pay is closely related to program expenses, CEOs at educational institutions receive compensation that is significantly associated with fixed assets. These organizations include primary and secondary schools, as well as colleges and universities. Unlike the arts CEOs, educational leaders are better compensated when their organizations have growth in contributions but not when they are more administratively efficient.

Health

Due to the competition in the health subsector between for-profit and nonprofit firms, one might expect that compensation would be more heavily weighted toward the pay-for-performance variables. Instead, we found that CEO compensation in this subsector is strongly related to organizational size. It is weakly tied to administrative efficiency, and is not significantly related to growth in contributions. From these results, we concluded that compensation in the health subsector is not closely tied to classic pay-for-performance measures.

With regard to free cash flows, we found that the sensitivity of CEO remuneration to increases in the commercial revenue share is highest in the health subsector. Health CEO remuneration is also quite sensitive to the relative size of the endowment. We found no significant relation between health CEO compensation and liquidity. Overall, the organization-size variables explain a greater portion of the variation in pay in the health subsector than the pay-for-performance and free cash flow variables combined.

Human Services and “Other”

CEO compensation in the human-services and “other” subsectors exhibit considerable similarities in the magnitude of the coefficients. Total program expenses are significantly related to compensation, with a $10–$11 gain in compensation for each $1,000 increase in program expenses. In neither case are total fixed assets significantly associated with remuneration. CEOs in both subsectors can expect to be financially rewarded for greater administrative efficiency and when the share of commercial revenue is higher and the relative size of the investment portfolio is larger. One striking difference is that CEOs in the other subsectors receive substantially higher compensation when contributions are increased, while CEOs of human-service providers oddly receive significantly lower compensation when liquidity is higher. In both subsectors, the organizational-size variables had more power to explain compensation than the other two variable groups combined.

Religion

Compensation for religious leaders differs substantially from the other sectors. First, “base” pay and both organizational-size variables are insignificant. In the area of pay-for-performance, the regression results indicate that compensation is not directly associated with growth in contributions. More unusually, it is negatively related to administrative efficiency. In one regard, the CEOs of religious organizations are similar to their counterparts: their compensation is significantly associated with the commercial-revenue share and the relative size of the investment portfolio. For CEOs of this subsector, the size hypothesis was most strongly supported, but it did not dominate the other two hypotheses combined.

Conclusions

We found that nonprofit CEOs are paid a base salary, and many CEOs also receive additional pay associated with larger organizational size. Our results indicate that while pay-for-performance is a factor in determining compensation, it is not prominent. In fact, in all the subsectors we studied, CEO compensation is more sensitive to organizational size and free cash flows than to performance. While our analysis suggests that nonprofits may not literally be violating the nondistribution constraint, we did find evidence that CEO compensation is significantly higher in the presence of free cash flows. In only one subsector (education), however, did we find evidence that free cash flow is a central factor.

___________________________________________

*This article is adapted from “The Price of Doing Good: Executive Compensation in Nonprofit Organizations,” an article by the authors published in the August 2010 issue (volume 29, issue 3) of Policy and Society, an Elsevier/ ScienceDirect publication. The original report can be accessed here.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 25 mai 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 25 mai 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

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Les conseils d’administration doivent se préoccuper davantage des relations humaines au sein des entreprises | L’expertise en RH sur le CA est essentielle


Dans ce billet, je tiens à souligner que plusieurs problèmes de relations humaines au sein de l’entreprise sont totalement inconnus du conseil. C’est pourquoi le CA doit nécessairement compter sur des administrateurs qui sont préoccupés par les aspects humains de l’organisation. Ces administrateurs sauront poser les bonnes questions afin de mieux connaître le moral des troupes ainsi que le degré de sensibilité de la direction par rapport aux « problèmes de RH ».

Les conseils d’administration sont beaucoup plus intéressés par les perspectives stratégiques et les résultats financiers. Quels sont les sentiments des employés envers la haute direction ? Trop souvent, on constate une distance énorme entre les employés et les dirigeants, si bien qu’on a l’impression que ceux-ci vivent dans un autre monde. L’exemple de Bombardier est éloquent à ce sujet…

Les comités de ressources humaines semblent davantage se préoccuper du bien-être de la haute direction que de la santé du climat de travail organisationnel. À cet égard, les cadres intermédiaires doivent jouer leurs rôles de leaders auprès de leurs employés, en échangeant fréquemment avec eux, en fixant des objectifs réalistes, en les aidant à se développer et en reconnaissant la valeur de leur contribution.

À mon avis, le conseil d’administration doit se doter d’un tableau de bord faisant état des aspects humains liés au succès de l’entreprise. À titre d’exemple, mentionnons la qualité du travail, la rotation du personnel, les défis de recrutement, les plaintes, la rémunération des employés en comparaison de celle de la haute direction, le moral des employés, l’appréciation du travail, la fierté d’appartenir à l’organisation, les indices de bonne réputation de l’entreprise en tant qu’employeur, etc.

La culture de l’organisation est généralement un facteur très négligé par les administrateurs. C’est pourquoi le Collège des administrateurs de sociétés a conçu un module ayant pour thème : Leadership, communications et ressources humaines. Ce module aborde la culture organisationnelle et son influence sur la performance de l’entreprise, ainsi que le leadership du management et l’importance que les membres du conseil doivent y accorder.

Enfin, les administrateurs doivent être conscients de la qualité de leur bassin de talents, lequel constitue assurément un avantage concurrentiel unique.

Je vous recommande la lecture d’un court article de Janet Candido*, paru dans le Globe and Mail du 19 mai, qui milite pour l’ajout d’experts en RH sur les conseils d’administration.

Vos commentaires sont toujours les bienvenus.

 

Why HR expertise is a critical addition to your board

 

 

For most public companies, the board of directors is usually composed of experienced, senior leaders who focus on high-level issues such as finance and strategy, believing these two functions, specifically, to be the foremost way to protect the interests of the shareholder. But an often-overlooked – yet equally important – role among boards is that of HR leadership, an increasingly popular point of view that’s also widely advocated by Richard Leblanc, professor at York University and expert on corporate governance.

As an example, a number of e-mails from senior employees in a company were disparaging of the company’s CEO, coupled with issues raised in an employee engagement survey that pointed to a complete lack of confidence in the CEO’s leadership. These issues – which included being dismissive of employee complaints, expecting unpaid overtime (so his budget looked good) and an unwillingness to accept accountability while blaming others – were unknown to the board and the chair of the board felt they should have been more aware.

In fact, they should have been more aware. While the directors are all very competent professionals, well versed in their areas of specialty, they had never thought to question issues of human capital. They focused on the business side of things, believing that the CEO was on top of the people issues. There was no HR expertise on this board, a mistake that led to some costly missteps. Had an independent HR leader been involved, he/she would have seen the signs: increased turnover, difficulty hiring top talent, an apathetic leadership team and missed deadlines. Eventually, this resulted in lost productivity and revenue, as well as damage to the company’s reputation, a situation that is much harder to fix – and takes more time.

If the board is there to protect the interests of the stakeholders, part of doing so requires an understanding of the culture and the depth of talent within the organization. Attention must be paid to employee engagement factors. In their course of duty, boards discuss issues and make decisions, but understanding the impact that these decisions will have on the culture is critical.

Board members may not know exactly what information they should be getting and discussing when it comes to people issues or even how to evaluate that information once received, but the best way to change this is to stop assuming and start asking questions. Are they comfortable with the depth of talent in the organization as it relates to the ongoing operations, as well as specific initiatives that the board is considering? Are there enough skilled people in place? Is the leadership engaged and committed? Do they have the confidence of the employees? Do employees understand the objectives of the company and do they feel good about where they are working?

Without this information, any board debates around strategy cannot be complete. The strategy being discussed and proposed can succeed or fail on the strength of the human capital, so this must be a consideration. And the board needs to understand where the organization is vulnerable.

It is easy to assume the CEO has the operations well in hand. In most cases, they likely do, but it can be disastrous if not. Even a CEO may not have the specific depth of skills or knowledge to accurately predict or interpret the impact certain strategies may have when it comes to human capital. The board is not doing its job if it doesn’t take this into consideration.

While an internal CHRO can provide some input, they cannot replace the independent oversight role of a board member or adviser. An HR leader who does not report to the CEO is not beholden, first and foremost; they will understand the impact of the information provided and the risks, if any, that exist. He or she can identify gaps in the information provided and any areas of vulnerability. This will result in a more robust debate that provides greater insight to a well-designed, well-executed process and plan.

*Janet Candido is the principal of Candido Consulting Group.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 18 mai 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 18 mai 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

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La gouvernance des entreprises à droit de vote multiple


Voici un excellent article de Blair A. Nicholas*, publié aujourd’hui, sur le site de Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, qui aborde un sujet bien d’actualité, et très controversé : le futur de la gouvernance dans le contexte d’émission d’actions à droit de vote multiple.

L’auteur présente l’historique de ce mouvement, montre les failles attribuables à ce genre de structure de capital, et suggère certains moyens pour contrer les lacunes observées dans le domaine de la gouvernance.

Plusieurs investisseurs institutionnels se déclarent défavorables à l’émission d’actions à droit de vote multiple, mais on assiste quand même à un accroissement sensible de ce type de structure actionnariale. Par exemple, le nombre d’entreprises américaines qui ont opté pour cette formule a quadruplé en dix ans, passant de 6 à 27. La plupart des entreprises en question sont dans le domaine des technologies : Google, Alibaba, Facebook, LinkedIn, Square, Zynga, Snap inc. Certaines entreprises ont commencé à émettre des actions sans droit de vote en guise de dividende…

Également, ce type d’arrangement est l’apanage de plusieurs entreprises québécoises qui cherchent à maintenir le pouvoir entre les mains des familles entrepreneuriales : Bombardier, Groupe Jean Coutu, Alimentation Couche-Tard, Power Corporation, etc. Est-ce dans « l’intérêt supérieur » de la société québécoise ?

Selon Blair, les études montrent que les entreprises à droit de vote multiple ont des performances inférieures, et que leur structure de gouvernance est plus faible.

Academic studies also reveal that dual-class structures underperform the market and have weaker corporate governance structures. For instance, a 2012 study funded by the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute, and conducted by Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., found that controlled firms with multi-class capital structures not only underperform financially, but also have more material weaknesses in accounting controls and are riskier in terms of volatility.

The study concluded that multi-class firms underperformed even other controlled companies, noting that the average 10-year shareholder return for controlled companies with multi-class structures was 7.52%, compared to 9.76% for non-controlled companies, and 14.26% for controlled companies with a single share class. A follow-up 2016 study reaffirmed these findings, noting that multi-class companies have weaker corporate governance and higher CEO pay.

Je vous invite également à lire l’article de Richard Dufour dans La Presse : Actions à droit de vote multiple : Bombardier critiqué

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On pourrait dire que « quand ça va mal dans ce genre d’entreprise, on dirait que rien ne va bien ! » L’exemple de Hollinger est éloquent à cet égard.

Par contre, « quand ça va bien, on dirait qu’il n’y a rien qui va mal ! » Ici, l’exemple de Couche-Tard est approprié.

Bonne lecture !

Quelle est votre opinion sur ce sujet ?

Dual-Class: The Consequences of Depriving Institutional Investors of Corporate Voting Rights

Recent developments and uncertainties in the securities markets are drawing institutional investors’ attention back to core principles of corporate governance. As investors strive for yield in this post-Great Recession, low interest rate environment, large technology companies’ valuations climb amid the promises of rapid growth. But at the same time, some of these successful companies are asking investors to give up what most regard as a fundamental right of ownership: the right to vote. Companies in the technology sector and elsewhere are increasingly issuing two classes or even three classes of stock with disparate voting rights in order to give certain executives and founders outsized voting power. By issuing stock with 1/10th the voting power of the executives’ or founders’ stock, or with no voting power at all, these companies create a bulwark for managerial entrenchment. Amid ample evidence that such skewed voting structures lead to reduced returns long run, many public pension funds and other institutional investors are standing up against this trend. But in the current environment of permissive exchange rules allowing for such dual-class or multi-class stock, there is still more that investors can do to protect their fundamental voting rights.

The problem of dual-class stock is not new. In the 1920s, many companies went public with dual-class share structures that limited “common” shareholders’ voting rights. But after the Great Depression, the NYSE—the dominant exchange at the time—adopted a “one share, one vote” rule that guided our national securities markets for decades. It was only in the corporate takeover era of the 1980s that dual-class stock mounted a comeback, with executives receiving stock that gave them voting power far in excess of their actual ownership stake. Defense-minded corporate executives left, or threatened to leave, the NYSE for the NASDAQ’s or the American Exchange’s rules, which permitted dual-class stock. In a race to the bottom, the NYSE suspended enforcement of its one share, one vote rule in 1984. While numerous companies have since adopted or retained dual-class structures, they remain definitively in the minority. Prominent among such outliers are large media companies that perpetuate the managerial oversight of a particular family or a dynastic editorial position, such as The New YorkTimes, CBS, Clear Channel, Viacom, and News Corp.

Now, corporate distributions of non-voting shares are on the rise, particularly among emerging technology companies. They have also been met with strong resistance from influential institutional investors. In 2012, Google—which already protected its founders through Class B shares that had ten times the voting power of Class A shares—moved to dilute further the voting rights of Class A shareholders by issuing to them third-tier Class C shares with no voting rights as “dividends.” Shareholders, led by a Massachusetts pension fund, filed suit, alleging that executives had breached their fiduciary duty by sticking investors with less valuable non-voting shares. On the eve of trial, the parties agreed to settle the case by letting the market decide the value of lost voting rights. When the non-voting shares ended up trading at a material discount to the original Class A shares, Google was forced to pay over $560 million to the plaintiff investors for their lost voting rights.

Facebook followed suit in early 2016 with a similar post-IPO plan to distribute non-voting shares and solidify founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s control. Amid renewed investor outcry, the pension fund Sjunde AP-Fonden and numerous index funds filed a suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty. Also in 2016, Barry Diller and IAC/InterActive Corp. tried a similar gambit, creating a new, non-voting class of stock in order to cement the control of Diller and his family over the business despite the fact that they owned less than 8% of the company’s stock. The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), which manages the largest public pension fund in the United States, filed suit in late 2016. [1] Both suits are currently pending.

To forego the ownership gymnastics of diluting existing shareholders’ voting rights by issuing non-voting shares as dividends, the more recent trend is to set up multi-class structures with non-voting shares from the IPO stage. Alibaba was so intent on going public with a dual-class structure that it crossed the Pacific Ocean to do so. The company first applied for an IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange, but when that exchange refused to bend its one share, one vote rule, the company went public on the NYSE. LinkedIn, Square, and Zynga also each implemented dual-class structures before going public. Overall, the number of IPOs with multi-class structures is increasing. There were only 6 such IPOs in 2006, but that number more than quadrupled to 27 in 2015. The latest example is Snap Inc., which earlier this year concluded the largest tech IPO since Alibaba’s, and took the unprecedented step of offering IPO purchasers no voting rights at all. This is a stark break from tradition, as prior dual-class firms had given new investors at least some—albeit proportionally weak—voting rights. As Anne Sheehan, Director of Corporate Governance for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (“CalSTRS”), has concluded, Snap’s recent IPO “raise[s] the discussion to a new level.”

Institutional investors such as CalSTRS are increasingly voicing opposition to IPOs promoting outsized executive and founder control. In 2016, the Council for Institutional Investors (“CII”) called for an end to dual-class IPOs. The Investor Stewardship Group, a collective of some of the largest U.S.-based institutional investors and global asset managers, including BlackRock, CalSTRS, the Vanguard Group, T. Rowe Price, and State Street Global Advisors, launched a stewardship code for the U.S. market in January, 2017. The code (discussed on the Forum here), called the Framework for Promoting Long-Term Value Creation for U.S. Companies, focuses explicitly on long-term value creation and states as core Corporate Governance Principle 2 that “shareholders should be entitled to voting rights in proportion to their economic interest.” Proxy advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., has also voiced strong opposition to dual-class structures.

The Snap IPO in particular has elicited investors’ rebuke. After Snap announced its intended issuance of non-voting stock, CII sent a letter to Snap’s executives, co-signed by 18 institutional investors, urging them to abandon their plan to “deny[] outside shareholders any voice in the company.” The letter noted that a single-class voting structure “is associated with stronger long-term performance, and mechanisms for accountability to owners,” and that when CII was formed over thirty years ago, “the very first policy adopted was the principle of one share, one vote.” Anne Simpson, Investment Director at CalPERS, has strongly criticized Snap’s non-voting share model, stating: “Ceding power without accountability is very troubling. I think you have to relabel this junk equity. Buyer beware.” Investors have also called for stock index providers to bar Snap’s shares from becoming part of major indices due to its non-voting shares. By keeping index fund investors’ cash out of such companies’ stock, such efforts could help provide concrete penalties for companies seeking to go to market with non-voting shares.

There are many compelling reasons why institutional investors strongly oppose dual-class stock structures that separate voting rights from cash-flow rights. In addition to the immediate deprivation of investors’ voting rights, there is ample evidence that giving select shareholders control, that is far out of line with their ownership stakes, reduces company value. Such structures reduce oversight by, and accountability to, the actual majority owners of the company. They hamper the ability of boards of directors to execute their fiduciary duties to shareholders. And they can incentivize managers to act in their own interests, instead of acting in the interest of the company’s owners. Hollinger International, a large international newspaper publisher now known as Sun-Times Media Group, is a striking example. Although former CEO, Conrad Black, owned just 30% of the firm’s equity, he controlled all of the company’s Class B shares, giving him an overwhelming 73% of the voting power. He filled the board with friends, then used the company for personal ends, siphoning off company funds through a variety of fees and dividends. Restrained by the dual-class stock structure, Hollinger stockholders at-large were essentially powerless to rein in such actions. Ultimately, the public also paid the price for the mismanagement, footing the bill to incarcerate Black for over three years after he was convicted of fraud. This is a classic example of dual-class shares leading to misalignment between management’s actions and most owners’ interests.

The typical retort from proponents of dual-class structures is that depriving most investors of equal voting rights allows managers the leeway to make forward-thinking decisions that cause short-term pain for overall long-term gain. This assertion, however, ignores that many investors—and in particular public pension funds and other long-term institutional investors—are themselves focused on long-term gains. If managers have good ideas for long-term investments, such prominent investors will likely support them.

Academic studies also reveal that dual-class structures underperform the market and have weaker corporate governance structures. For instance, a 2012 study funded by the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute, and conducted by Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., found that controlled firms with multi-class capital structures not only underperform financially, but also have more material weaknesses in accounting controls and are riskier in terms of volatility. The study concluded that multi-class firms underperformed even other controlled companies, noting that the average 10-year shareholder return for controlled companies with multi-class structures was 7.52%, compared to 9.76% for non-controlled companies, and 14.26% for controlled companies with a single share class. A follow-up 2016 study reaffirmed these findings, noting that multi-class companies have weaker corporate governance and higher CEO pay. As IRCC Institute Executive Director Jon Lukomnik summarized, multi-class companies are “built for comfort, not performance.”

Proponents of dual-class structures also argue that investors who prize voting power can simply take the “Wall Street Walk,” selling shares of companies that resemble dictatorships while retaining shares of companies with a more democratic voting structure. That is often easier said than done. For instance, passively managed funds may not be able to simply sell individual companies’ stock at will. Structural safeguards such as equal voting rights should ensure investors’ ability to guide and correct management productively as events unfold. If the only solution is for investors to abandon certain investments after dual-class systems have done their damage, owners lose out financially and discussions in corporate boardrooms and C-suites across the country will suffer from a lack of diversity, perspective, and accountability.

Ultimately, arguments regarding investor choice also ignore that failures in corporate governance can impose costs not only on corporate shareholders, but also on society at large. When dual-class stock structures prevent boards and individual shareholders from effectively monitoring corporate executives, that monitoring function can be exported to third parties, including the courts and government regulators. Regulators may need to step up disclosure provisions to ensure transparency of such controlled companies, and courts may be called upon to remedy the behavior of unchecked executives. In the monitoring and in the clean-up, the externalities placed upon outsiders make corporate voting rights an issue of public policy.

As the trend of issuing dual-class or multi-class stock continues, institutional investors should remain vigilant to protect shareholders’ voting rights. Pre-IPO investors can oppose the issuance of non-voting shares during IPOs. Investors in publicly traded companies can speak out against proposed changes to share structures or resort to litigation when necessary, such as in the Google, Facebook, and IAC cases. Institutional investors may also lobby Congress, regulators, and the national exchanges to revive the traditional ban on non-voting shares or make it harder to issue no-vote shares. For instance, in the wake of the Snap IPO, CII Executive Director Ken Bertsch and other investors met with the SEC Investor Advisory Committee. They encouraged the SEC to work with U.S.-based exchanges to (1) bar future no-vote share classes; (2) require sunset provisions for differential common stock voting rights; and (3) consider enhanced board requirements for dual-class companies in order to discourage rubber-stamp boards. Whether by working with regulators, securities exchanges, index providers, or corporate boards, institutional investors that continue to fight for shareholder voting rights will be working to promote open and responsive capital markets, and the long-term value creation that comes with them.

Endnotes

1Our firm, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, represents CalPERS in this litigation.(go back)

_______________________________________

*Blair A. Nicholas is a partner and Brandon Marsh is senior counsel at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP. This post is based on a Bernstein Litowitz publication by Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Marsh.

Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Untenable Case for Perpetual Dual-Class Stock by Lucian Bebchuk and Kobi Kastiel (discussed on the Forum here).

Qu’est-ce qu’un président « exécutif » de conseil d’administration ? | Le cas de Bombardier 


Voici un article de Karim Benessaieh publié dans la section Actualité expliquée de La Presse+ Affaires le 13 mai 2017.

L’auteur apporte les précisions requises quant aux titres et fonctions du président du conseil de Bombardier, Pierre Beaudoin.

Pierre Beaudoin était président et chef de la direction (CEO ou PDG) de Bombardier depuis 2008. En 2015, il devient le président « exécutif » du conseil d’administration de Bombardier.

Récemment, ce dernier a renoncé à la portion « exécutive » de ses fonctions. Qu’est-ce que cela implique pour le commun des mortels ?

C’est exactement ce à quoi Karim Benessaieh a tenté de répondre dans son article, reproduit ci-dessous, auquel j’ai participé.

Bonne lecture ! Vos commentaires sont les bienvenus.

 

Un président exécutif, ça mange quoi en hiver ?

 

Qu’est-ce qu’un président exécutif ? Peut-on être PDG, président du conseil d’administration et chef de la direction en même temps ? Dans la tempête qui ébranle Bombardier depuis six semaines, il est facile de se perdre dans les étiquettes. La Presse a demandé à deux experts en gouvernance d’éclairer notre lanterne.

 

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À quoi a renoncé exactement Pierre Beaudoin en retirant la partie « exécutive » de son mandat ?

À la base, Pierre Beaudoin, fils de Laurent Beaudoin et de Claire Bombardier et donc petit-fils de Joseph-Armand Bombardier, est le président du conseil d’administration de l’entreprise depuis 2015. Son rôle est de « gérer le conseil et [d’]établir l’ordre du jour » pour les 15 membres de cette instance, comme le précise le site de Bombardier, qui ne fait aucune référence à l’aspect « exécutif » de son travail.

Dans l’avis de convocation des actionnaires, cette semaine, on reprend la formule un peu vague selon laquelle M. Beaudoin est en outre chargé de « la définition d’une orientation stratégique et [de] la gestion des relations entretenues avec certaines parties prenantes et avec la clientèle ». Ce sont ces dernières responsabilités qu’il a perdues.

Vous ne nous éclairez pas beaucoup…

Désolé, c’était la réponse officielle. C’est que le « président exécutif » est une bête un peu curieuse souvent associée aux entreprises familiales ou dont le fondateur est encore bien présent. Aux États-Unis, peu de confusion : pour 50 % des entreprises cotées en Bourse, le PDG (ou CEO) est également président du conseil d’administration. Le président du conseil, dans ces cas, est « exécutif » de facto. Au Canada, seulement 14 % des entreprises sont dirigées par un PDG qui est en même temps président du conseil d’administration.

Par contre, dans une sorte de formule mitoyenne, certaines entreprises d’ici ont donné des responsabilités élargies à leur président du conseil en lui ajoutant l’étiquette « exécutif » : il devient dans les faits un deuxième PDG.

Au Québec, CGI, Couche-Tard et Cascades ont donné ce titre à celui qui préside leur conseil d’administration. « C’est une formule hybride, résume Michel Nadeau, directeur général de l’Institut sur la gouvernance. Ça reflète généralement une situation temporaire où le nouveau PDG apprend à gérer, avec l’entrepreneur fondateur. »

Et c’est bien d’avoir un président du conseil qui se mêle d’administration ?

Un peu de contexte ici. Depuis plus d’une décennie, au Canada et en Europe, les autorités réglementaires, les experts en gouvernance et les investisseurs institutionnels comme la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec suggèrent fortement de séparer les fonctions de président du conseil d’administration et de président de l’entreprise. Aucune loi n’impose cette division des tâches, cependant.

« On veut éviter les conflits d’intérêts, explique Jacques Grisé, président de l’Ordre des administrateurs agréés du Québec. Séparer les deux postes est un signe de bonne gouvernance, et on est en train de le reconnaître même aux États-Unis, où ça s’améliore graduellement. »

C’est le conseil d’administration qui embauche le PDG et fixe sa rémunération, rappelle M. Nadeau. « Le président exécutif est un peu coincé entre les deux. Quand il arrive avec une proposition de rémunération qui inclut la sienne, c’est bizarre. Quand il travaille 40 heures par semaine avec le PDG alors qu’il doit pouvoir le confronter au conseil d’administration, ça donne une situation incongrue. » C’est une « simple question de logique », estime-t-il, qu’il n’y ait pas un cumul des pouvoirs au sein d’une entreprise. « Il faut un superviseur et un supervisé, un contrepoids. »

Est-ce que les entreprises qui séparent les fonctions de président du conseil et de PDG s’en portent financièrement mieux ?

« Les études ne sont pas très claires en ce sens, mais on voit que partout dans le monde, on essaie d’implanter cette séparation », répond M. Grisé. Cette question précise fait partie d’un vaste ensemble, la bonne gouvernance, qui comprend bien d’autres exigences, rappelle M. Nadeau. « Dans le cas de Bombardier, ç’aurait été une bonne chose d’avoir un président du conseil indépendant. C’est souhaitable, mais il faut être réaliste : dans une entreprise contrôlée par une famille, c’est demander de l’héroïsme. »

_______________________________________

Karim Benessaieh est reporter économique à La Presse depuis 2000.
Ce texte provenant de La Presse+ est une copie en format web. Consultez-le gratuitement en version interactive dans l’application La Presse+.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 11 mai 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 11 mai 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

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  4. SEC Enforcement Activity—Strong Through First Half of FY 2017
  5. What You Are Likely to Hear in the Board Room
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  8. Guarding Against Challenges to Director Equity Compensation
  9. Financial Markets and the Political Center of Gravity
  10. An Activist View of CEO Compensation

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 4 mai 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 4 mai 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

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  1. Cybersecurity Trends for Boards of Directors
  2. Global Climate Change and Sustainability Financial Reporting: An Unstoppable Force with or without Trump
  3. The Departing Remarks of Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo
  4. The Emerging Need for Cybersecurity Diligence in M&A
  5. Blockholder Voting
  6. Proxy Voting Conflicts—Asset Manager Conflicts of Interest in the Energy and Utility Industries
  7. President Trump’s Dangerous CHOICE
  8. Independent Directors and Controlling Shareholders
  9. Independent Directors: New Class of 2016
  10. Contested Visions: The Value of Systems Theory for Corporate Law

Le démantèlement de la réglementation « Dodd-Frank Act » est-il souhaitable du point de vue de la bonne gouvernance ?


Plusieurs experts de la gouvernance des sociétés cotées se demandent ce qu’il adviendra de la législation Dodd-Frank Act, sachant que Donald Trump a promis d’effectuer un démantèlement presque total de cette réglementation qui a été mise en place à la suite de la crise financière de 2007-2008.

L’article de Gregg Gelzinis* du Center for American Progress publié sur le site de Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, tente de faire la lumière sur une proposition gouvernementale appelée Financial CHOICE Act ou FCA.

L’auteur montre que les raisons invoquées pour modifier la réforme Dodd-Frank Act ne tiennent pas la route. Voici un extrait de la conclusion.

The question remains: What is the problem President Trump and his allies in Congress are trying to solve? Lending is up. Bank profits are up. Consumer credit costs are down. The economy is steadily improving.

Yes, much more needs to be done to make the economy work for hard-working Americans, but financial deregulation is not the path to that end. [16]

In fact, it is a path toward exactly the opposite: booms and busts that leave taxpayers holding the bag for Wall Street’s excesses, greater concentration of economic power and less accountability for wrongdoing that harms ordinary consumers and investors, and major changes to financial regulation and monetary policy that would damage the real economy. Now that is a problem.

L’avenir nous dira ce que nous réservent les « nouvelles » règles de gouvernance prônées par la nouvelle administration américaine.

Évidemment, la réglementation canadienne, toujours très liée à celle de la SEC, devra s’ajuster, sans trop de heurts !

Bonne lecture ! Vos commentaires sont appréciés des lecteurs.

 

President Trump’s Dangerous CHOICE

 

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During his campaign, Donald Trump promised a near-dismantling of the Dodd-Frank Act, the core piece of financial reform legislation enacted following the 2007-2008 financial crisis. [1] He doubled down on that promise once in office, vowing to both “do a big number” on and give “a very major haircut” to Dodd-Frank. [2] In early February, he took the first step in fulfilling this dangerous promise by signing an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin to conduct a review of Dodd-Frank. [3] Per the executive order, Secretary Mnuchin will present the findings in early June. [4] While the country waits for President Trump’s plan, it is useful to analyze one prominent way Trump and Congress might choose to gut financial reform—through the Financial CHOICE Act, or FCA. [5]

Introduced in the last Congress by U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and expected to be reintroduced in the coming weeks, the Financial CHOICE Act offers a blueprint for how Trump might view these issues. During the presidential campaign, Rep. Hensarling briefed Trump on his ideas regarding financial deregulation and was reportedly on Trump’s short list for treasury secretary. [6] The FCA would deregulate the financial industry and put the U.S. economy in the same perilous position it was in right before the 2007–2008 financial crisis. The precrisis regime of weak regulation and little oversight created an environment of unchecked financial sector risk and widespread predatory consumer practices, which precipitated the Great Recession and brought the U.S. economy to the brink of collapse. And the argument repeated by President Trump and other advocates of financial deregulatory proposals—that bank lending has been crushed under the weight of financial regulations over the past six years—has been thoroughly debunked by bank lending data. [7]

Before delving into the specifics of the Financial CHOICE Act, it is helpful to put Rep. Hensarling’s deregulatory efforts in context. To justify dismantling financial reform, President Trump and his congressional allies know that they must outline a problem. President Trump argues that the main problem with financial reform is bank lending. He believes that banks are not making enough loans due to the burdens of Dodd-Frank. What is his evidence? Nothing more than anecdotal remarks that his friends cannot get loans. [8] As Figure 1 demonstrates, a lack of loans is simply not the case. Overall lending and business lending in particular, has increased significantly since the financial crisis and the passage of Dodd-Frank. Moreover, credit card lending, auto lending, and mortgage lending have increased since 2010, when Dodd-Frank was passed. [9] Bank profits are also higher than ever. [10]

 

 

Chairman Hensarling makes similar arguments about the perceived unavailability of credit, adding that financial reform has not encouraged economic growth and has hurt community banks. [11] Again, the data contradict these charges. Figure 2 highlights the steady economic growth the country experienced under President Barack Obama. And while the scars of the devastating Great Recession remain, the financial reforms put in place to prevent the recurrence of exactly that kind of economic catastrophe have not damaged growth. Indeed, since the end of the financial crisis and the passage of Dodd-Frank, community bank lending and profitability are both up. [12] It is fair to say that the number of community banks has declined over time. This trend, however, started in the 1980s and is caused by economies of scale, technology, and long-running trends toward banking deregulation, as well as other factors—not the 2010 passage of the Dodd-Frank Act. [13]

 

 

Hensarling presents his approach as a moderate adjustment to Dodd-Frank, but in reality it is a thorough demolition of financial reform. The complete publication (available here) analyzes how Hensarling’s approach erodes the financial stability safeguards that the real economy needs to thrive, from mitigation of systemic risk to financial sector accountability and consumer protection. It also explains how the bill further concentrates—and makes even more unaccountable—economic power in the hands of those that will serve their own interests at the expense of the real economy. Finally, the report details how the FCA eliminates the consumer and investor protections that guard against the predatory financial practices that wreaked havoc on consumers and investors prior to the financial crisis.

It is necessary to note that just about every provision in the report could fit under the rubric of financial stability safeguards. For example, consumer financial protection protects ordinary consumers from abuses and the broader financial system from the proliferation of dangerous consumer loans that can bring down entire firms and markets. Similarly, the Volcker Rule is a key bulwark against the high-risk bets that brought down major firms in 2008, and yet it also aims to reorient large bank trading toward real economy-serving purposes. The report discusses certain provisions under one section rather than another should not be taken as a substantive comment on the merit or usefulness of the provision to financial stability. The report’s different sections reflect an effort to highlight how the Dodd-Frank Act and financial reform yield a broad array of public benefits. Similarthe report highlights examples of broader themes in the FCA rather than focusing on minute details: Failure to discuss any particular provision should not be read as a substantive judgment regarding its relative merits.

The report is based on the version of the Financial CHOICE Act released in September 2016, as well as a memo outlining this year’s planned changes to that version. [14] A new version, which may have some further modifications, is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

Financial reform enacted through the Dodd-Frank Act has made a lot of necessary progress since the crisis. U.S. banks have more substantial loss-absorbing capital cushions, increasingly rely on stable sources of funding, undergo rigorous stress testing, and plan for their orderly failure. President Trump’s intent to dismantle these reforms only helps Wall Street’s bottom line—ignoring the memory of every family who lost their home, every worker who lost his or her job, and every consumer who was peddled a toxic financial product. [15]

The question remains: What is the problem President Trump and his allies in Congress are trying to solve? Lending is up. Bank profits are up. Consumer credit costs are down. The economy is steadily improving. Yes, much more needs to be done to make the economy work for hard-working Americans, but financial deregulation is not the path to that end. [16] In fact, it is a path toward exactly the opposite: booms and busts that leave taxpayers holding the bag for Wall Street’s excesses, greater concentration of economic power and less accountability for wrongdoing that harms ordinary consumers and investors, and major changes to financial regulation and monetary policy that would damage the real economy. Now that is a problem.

The complete publication, including footnotes, is available here.

Endnotes

1Billy House and Kevin Cirilli, “Trump’s Dodd-Frank Plan Will Be Early Test of Republican Unity,” Bloomberg, May 19, 2016, available at https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-19/trump-s-dodd-frank-plan-will-be-early-test-of-republican-unity. (go back)

2Glenn Thrush, “Trump Vows to Dismantle Dodd-Frank ‘Disaster,’” The New York Times, January 30, 2017, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/trump-dodd-frank-regulations.html?_r=0; Jessica Dye, “Trump vows ‘major haircut’ for Dodd-Frank,” Financial Times, April 4, 2017, available at https://www.ft.com/content/fb08a355-f7fc-3021-8c92-d94af9a2f35b. (go back)

3Executive Order no. 13,772, Code of Federal Regulations (2017), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presidential-executive-order-core-principles-regulating-united-states. (go back)

4Ibid. (go back)

5Financial CHOICE Act of 2016, H. Rept. 5983, 114 Cong. 2 sess. (Government Printing Office, 2016), available at https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr5983/BILLS-114hr5983rh.pdf. (go back)

6Donna Borak, “Donald Trump, Jeb Hensarling Meet on Dodd-Frank Alternative,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2016, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-jeb-hensarling-meet-on-dodd-frank-alternative-1465335535; Damien Palette, Ryan Tracy, and Michael C. Bender, “Trump Team Considering Rep. Jeb Hensarling as Treasury Secretary,” The Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2016, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-considering-rep-jeb-hensarling-as-treasury-secretary-1478812583. (go back)

7Jim Puzzanghera, “Trump says businesses can’t borrow because of Dodd-Frank. The numbers tell another story,” Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2017, available at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-bank-loans-20170226-story.html; Matt Egan, “Banks are lending a ton, despite Trump’s claims,” CNN Money, February 13, 2017, available at http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/13/investing/bank-business-lending-dodd-frank-trump/. (go back)

8Zeke Faux, Yalman Onaran, and Jennifer Surane, “Trump Cites Friends to Say Banks Aren’t Making Loans. They Are.,” Bloomberg, February 4, 2017, available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-04/trump-cites-friends-to-say-banks-aren-t-making-loans-they-are. (go back)

9Kate Berry, “Four myths in the battle over Dodd-Frank,” American Banker, March 10, 2017, available at https://www.americanbanker.com/news/four-myths-in-the-battle-over-dodd-frank. (go back)

10Matt Egan, “American bank profits are higher than ever,” CNN Money, March 3, 2017, available at http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/03/investing/bank-profits-record-high-dodd-frank/. (go back)

11Jeb Hensarling, “After Five Years, Dodd-Frank Is a Failure,” The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2015, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-five-years-dodd-frank-is-a-failure-1437342607. (go back)

12Gregg Gelzinis and others, “The Importance of Dodd-Frank, in 6 Charts,” Center for American Progress, March 27, 2017, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2017/03/27/429256/importance-dodd-frank-6-charts/. (go back)

13Ibid. (go back)

14Ylan Mui, “Memo from a key congressman outlines plan to gut Dodd-Frank bank rules,” CNBC, February 9, 2017, available at http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/09/dodd-frank-hensarling-memo-reveals-plan-to-scrap-bank-regulations.html. (go back)

15Wall Street is not monolithic, and firms may have differing views on the provisions of the Financial CHOICE Act, but on the whole, this agenda is clearly aligned with the interests of financial institutions and not the American public.

_______________________________________

*Gregg Gelzinis is a Special Assistant for the Economic Policy team at the Center for American Progress. This post is based on a Center for American Progress publication by Mr. Gelzinis, Ethan Gurwitz, Sarah Edelman, and Joe Valenti. Additional posts addressing legal and financial implications of the Trump administration are available here.

Deux théories de la gouvernance des sociétés


Aujourd’hui, je vous conseille la lecture d’un court article de Martin Lipton* paru sur le site du HLS hier.

Dans cet article, paru dans la revue Harvard Business Review de mai-juin 2017, l’auteur souligne l’excellente contribution de Joseph L. Bower et de Lynn S. Paine lesquels montrent les effets pervers de l’adoption de la « théorie de l’agence » pour expliquer la gouvernance corporative.

Afin de contrer les effets courts-termistes et les situations d’activisme débridées, les auteurs suggèrent d’adopter la théorie de la corporation centrée sur les parties prenantes (« corporation-centric/constituency theory of governance »). On a une meilleure idée de cette approche lorsque l’on prend en compte la loi des affaires de la Pennsylvanie.

“In fact the corporation-centric theory—that the directors have a fiduciary duty to the corporation and all of its stakeholders—is reflected in a number of state corporation laws. Perhaps the most cogent example is the Pennsylvania Business Corporation Law which provides:” …

Bonne lecture !

Corporate Governance

In a brilliant must-read article in the May-June 2017 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine show the fallacies of the economic theories and statistical studies that have been used since 1970 to justify shareholder-centric corporate governance, short-termism and activist attacks on corporations. They demonstrate the pernicious effect of the agency theory promoted by Milton Frenchman (1970) and Michael Jensen and William Meckling (1976), a theory still endorsed today by a majority of academic economists and lawyers who write about and teach corporate governance. The Bower and Paine rejection of hedge fund activism is telling.

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The activists’ claim of value creation is further clouded by indications that some of the value purportedly created for shareholders is actually value transferred from other parties or from the general public. Large-sample research on this question is limited, but one study suggests that the positive abnormal returns associated with the announcement of a hedge fund intervention are, in part, a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders. The study found that workers’ hours decreased and their wages stagnated in the three years after an intervention. Other studies have found that some of the gains for shareholders come at the expense of bondholders. Still other academic work links aggressive pay-for-stock-performance arrangements to various misdeeds involving harm to consumers, damage to the environment, and irregularities in accounting and financial reporting.

We are not aware of any studies that examine the total impact of hedge fund interventions on all stakeholders or society at large. Still, it appears self-evident that shareholders’ gains are sometimes simply transfers from the public purse, such as when management improves earnings by shifting a company’s tax domicile to a lower-tax jurisdiction—a move often favored by activists, and one of Valeant’s proposals for Allergan. Similarly, budget cuts that eliminate exploratory research aimed at addressing some of society’s most vexing challenges may enhance current earnings but at a cost to society as well as to the company’s prospects for the future.

Hedge fund activism points to some of the risks inherent in giving too much power to unaccountable “owners.” As our analysis of agency theory’s premises suggests, the problem of moral hazard is real—and the consequences are serious. Yet practitioners continue to embrace the theory’s doctrines; regulators continue to embed them in policy; boards and managers are under increasing pressure to deliver short-term returns; and legal experts forecast that the trend toward greater shareholder empowerment will persist. To us, the prospect that public companies will be run even more strictly according to the agency-based model is alarming. Rigid adherence to the model by companies uniformly across the economy could easily result in even more pressure for current earnings, less investment in R&D and in people, fewer transformational strategies and innovative business models, and further wealth flowing to sophisticated investors at the expense of ordinary investors and everyone else.

To counter short-termism and activism, Bower and Paine embrace the corporation-centric/constituency theory of governance. They argue that the corporation and its board of directors have a fiduciary duty not just to its shareholders, but to its employees, customers, suppliers and to the community. This is the theory I argued in Takeover Bids in the Target’s Boardroom (1979) and regularly since in a long series of articles and memoranda. While Bower and Paine say:

The new model has yet to be fully developed, but its conceptual foundations can be outlined …[T]he company-centered model we envision tracks basic corporate law in holding that a corporation is an independent entity, that management’s authority comes from the corporation’s governing body and ultimately from the law, and that managers are fiduciaries (rather than agents) and are thus obliged to act in the best interests of the corporation and its shareholders (which is not the same as carrying out the wishes of even a majority of shareholders). This model recognizes the diversity of shareholders’ goals and the varied roles played by corporations in society. We believe that it aligns better than the agency-based model does with the realities of managing a corporation for success over time and is thus more consistent with corporations’ original purpose and unique potential as vehicles for projects involving large-scale, long-term investment.

In fact the corporation-centric theory—that the directors have a fiduciary duty to the corporation and all of its stakeholders—is reflected in a number of state corporation laws. Perhaps the most cogent example is the Pennsylvania Business Corporation Law which provides:

A director of a business corporation shall stand in a fiduciary relation to the corporation and shall perform his duties as a director, including his duties as a member of any committee of the board upon which he may serve, in good faith, in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of the corporation and with such care, including reasonable inquiry, skill and diligence, as a person of ordinary prudence would use under similar circumstances.

In discharging the duties of their respective positions, the board of directors, committees of the board and individual directors of a business corporation may, in considering the best interests of the corporation, consider to the extent they deem appropriate:

  1. The effects of any action upon any or all groups affected by such action, including shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers and creditors of the corporation, and upon communities in which offices or other establishments of the corporation are located.
  2. The short-term and long-term interests of the corporation, including benefits that may accrue to the corporation from its long-term plans and the possibility that these interests may be best served by the continued independence of the corporation.
  3. The resources, intent and conduct (past, stated and potential) of any person seeking to acquire control of the corporation.
  4. All other pertinent factors.

While wider adoption and strengthening of laws like the Pennsylvania statute would provide some more ability to boards of directors to temper short-termism and resist attacks by activist hedge funds, voting control of corporations will remain in the hands of the major institutional investors and asset managers. To achieve a truly meaningful change and effectively promote long-term investment, corporations and institutional investors and asset managers will need to endorse and adhere to The New Paradigm: A Roadmap for an Implicit Corporate Governance Partnership Between Corporations and Investors to Achieve Sustainable Long-Term Investment and Growth (2016) (discussed on the Forum here) promulgated by the World Economic Forum or A Synthesized Paradigm for Corporate Governance, Investor Stewardship, and Engagement (2017) (discussed on the Forum here) based on it and on The Principles of the Investor Stewardship Group (2017). The alternative would be legislation, something that both corporations and investors should assiduously avoid.

_________________________________

*Martin Lipton is a founding partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and matters affecting corporate policy and strategy. This post is based on a Wachtell Lipton publication by Mr. Lipton. Additional posts by Martin Lipton on short-termism and corporate governance are available here.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 20 avril 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 20 avril 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « harvard law school forum on corporate governance »

 

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « harvard law school forum on corporate governance »

 

  1. The Law and Brexit XI
  2. Lowering the Bar on Bad Faith Claims in MLP Transactions? Brinckerhoff v. Enbridge Energy
  3. Do Independent Directors Curb Financial Fraud? The Evidence and Proposals for Further Reform
  4. From Boardroom to C-Suite: Why Would a Company Pick a Current Director as CEO?
  5. A Synthesized Paradigm for Corporate Governance, Investor Stewardship, and Engagement
  6. Securities Class Action Settlements: 2016 Review and Analysis
  7. Sustainability Matters: Focusing on your Future Today
  8. In Defense of Fairness Opinions: An Empirical Review of Ten Years of Data
  9. Behavioral Implications of the CEO-Employee Pay Ratio
  10. Do Staggered Boards Affect Firm Value?

Vers une organisation créatrice de confiance | « a trusting organization »


Cette année encore, je cède la parole à Me Donald Riendeau*, cofondateur et directeur général de l’Institut de la confiance dans les organisations (ICO), qui agit à titre de blogueur invité.

Celui-ci nous entretiendra de l’importance de solidifier la confiance à l’échelle de toutes les entreprises et d’insuffler une gouvernance créatrice de confiance eu égard aux relations entre le conseil d’administration et la direction.

L’auteur nous présentera également un avant-goût du Sommet international de la confiance 2017 qui « vise à partager des pratiques, des outils et des ingrédients permettant de renforcer la confiance dans nos organisations, envers nos organisations et entre nos organisations ».

Plusieurs organisations collaborent à la tenue de cet événement, dont l’Ordre des administrateurs agréés du Québec (OAAQ).

Bonne lecture !

 

Pourquoi un Sommet de la confiance ?

Pour développer ensemble des organisations créatrices de confiance[1] !

par Me Donald Riendeau*

 

Il y a quatre ans, lorsque je cofondais l’Institut de la confiance dans les organisations, plusieurs journalistes me demandèrent, en blague, si c’était une secte ! Cette anecdote démontre que l’enjeu de la confiance n’est pas aussi intimement lié au milieu des affaires au Québec qu’il ne l’est dans le milieu anglophone. C’est peut-être par ce que dans ce cas précis notre langue française a moins de mots que sa cousine anglaise.

En effet, en anglais lorsqu’on parle de la « confiance en soi », le mot utilisé est « confidence », alors que la confiance en affaires est représentée par le mot « Trust ». Ce n’est donc pas surprenant que de grandes institutions financières aient inclus ce mot si important dans leur propre dénomination sociale. Ce n’est pas surprenant non plus de voir de grandes organisations comme Walt Disney investir des millions dans des démarches de confiance organisationnelle.

 

 

Dans les pays francophones, le mot « confiance » réfère autant à la confiance en soi qu’à la confiance organisationnelle. Pas surprenant qu’à Paris nos confrères aient préféré l’appellation « Trust Management Institute »…

De plus en plus, on saisit l’importance que représente la confiance pour nos organisations. Il n’y a pas une semaine au cours de la dernière année où l’on n’a pas parlé de la confiance (SPVM, MTQ, Maire Coderre, Chef de Police de la Ville de Laval, etc.).

Malheureusement, on associe encore trop souvent l’enjeu de la confiance avec ceux de l’intégrité ou de la gouvernance. Bien entendu, ceux-ci sont des ingrédients importants à la confiance, mais on aurait tort de systématiquement les lier à l’enjeu de la confiance. La confiance organisationnelle est bien davantage que la gouvernance et l’intégrité. Il y a une multitude d’ingrédients à cette confiance, et chaque partie prenante accorde une importance différente à ces ingrédients.

Prenons l’exemple d’une entreprise de construction. Pour les autorités réglementaires, devant surveiller cette entreprise, les ingrédients les plus importants seront la conformité et la gouvernance. Pour ses créanciers, les ingrédients les plus importants seront la performance et la gouvernance. Pour ses clients privés : la compétence, la sécurité, le respect des échéanciers, etc. Pour l’employé sur le chantier : le climat de travail, le travail d’équipe, l’équité et la reconnaissance.

Par conséquent, pour être une véritable « organisation créatrice de confiance (MC) » ou « trusting organization (MC) », cette organisation ne pourra pas simplement se contenter d’exceller dans la gouvernance et l’intégrité, elle devra aussi renforcer les différents ingrédients essentiels à chacune des parties prenantes.

Alors que le premier Sommet international de la Confiance de 2015 visait à démontrer l’importance que représente la confiance dans notre société, le Sommet 2017 vise à partager des pratiques, des outils et des ingrédients permettant de renforcer la confiance dans nos organisations, envers nos organisations et entre nos organisations.

Parmi les sujets qui seront abordés lors du prochain Sommet :

 

La confiance mondiale à l’ère de Donald Trump.

Portrait de la confiance à travers le monde (Canada, France, Australie, Danemark, États-Unis, Afrique, etc.).

Confiance dans les secteurs de la construction et de l’ingénierie à l’ère post-Charbonneau… Où en sommes-nous ?

L’ADN d’une organisation de confiance.

Les modèles d’affaires de demain pour créer la confiance.

Reconstruire la confiance dans nos organisations, est-ce possible ?

Développons des professionnels de confiance dans l’intérêt du public et de nos professions.

Le secteur philanthropique générateur de confiance.

Développons ensemble des élus et des leaders de confiance.

 

Nous attendons plus de 200 leaders des secteurs privé, public, coopératif, sans but lucratif, et paritaire. Faites partie de ceux qui renforceront la confiance dans nos organisations et dans notre société.

Vous pouvez obtenir toutes les informations à l’adresse suivante :

Sommet international de la confiance 2017

[1]  L’organisation créatrice de confiance (MC) se nomme aussi : « trusting organization (MC) ».

*Me Donald Riendeau LLB, LLM, MBA, cofondateur et directeur général Institut de la confiance dans les organisations (ICO)

Étude sur les pratiques des CA américains | ISS


La firme-conseil ISS, (Institutional Shareholder Services) publie chaque année une étude de l’évolution des pratiques de gouvernance aux É.U. (Board Practices Study).

Rob Yates, vice-président d’ISS, est l’auteur de cet article paru sur le site de Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. Il y aborde cinq tendances majeures.

Les investisseurs continuent d’exercer des pressions sur les administrateurs du conseil, entre autres en continuant de demander d’inclure de nouvelles candidatures dans la circulaire de procuration.

On constate que les pratiques généralement reconnues de bonne gouvernance sont adoptées dans presque toutes les grandes sociétés ; elles sont de plus en plus acceptées dans les plus petites entreprises. On fait ici référence aux élections annuelles, au vote majoritaire et à l’élimination des pilules empoisonnées.

La question du choix d’un président du conseil totalement indépendant et différent du CEO semble être moins problématique si la société fait appel à président désigné (lead director) indépendant et fort.

La rémunération des administrateurs de sociétés a continué de croître significativement. Les CA évaluent différentes approches à la compensation des administrateurs. Ainsi, on élimine de plus en plus les jetons de présence pour les réunions et les conférences téléphoniques. La rémunération des administrateurs s’est accrue de 17 % de 2012 à 2016 tandis que celle des PDG a augmenté de 10 % pendant la même période.

ISS a produit plusieurs études sur les tendances en matière de limite des mandats (tenure), du renouvellement des administrateurs du CA et de l’importance de la diversité. Si le sujet vous intéresse, l’auteur vous réfère à plusieurs études américaines et mondiales.

Bonne lecture !

U.S. Board Practices

 

This year’s Board Practices Study focuses not only on longstanding issues traditionally covered, but on those which have driven increased shareholder interest in the boardroom over the past several years. Governance continues to evolve, but investor focus in recent years has been particularly pointed as new concerns have emerged, and the ways in which companies address those concerns adapts to meet market demands. Particular focus has been placed on the role of the board as a representative of shareholders at a company, and how the board’s structure and practices promulgate this responsibility. As always, this study provides a snapshot of these facets of public company boards in the S&P 1500 for investors and issuers to compare and contrast.

 

Investors are continuing to push for board accountability

 

The pyroclastic spread of proxy access over the past two years has arguably been the most prominent governance story in the United States. In two short years, the S&P went from having only a handful of companies with proxy access, to having over half its constituents offering shareholders the right. Proxy access is also starting to show up in shareholder proposals at smaller firms; as of March 14, ISS is tracking a dozen such proposals at S&P 400 companies.

 

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Advisory Board Best Practices: Roles and Advice

 

Proxy access is the most recent chapter in the much longer story of shareholders seeking board accountability. The next chapters are underway, with investors focusing on board self-regulation practices and measures, such as director tenure and board refreshment, board diversity, board evaluations, mandatory retirement ages, and more. Some of these are showing promise—such as board refreshment and continuing progress on gender diversity—while others are lagging, such as non-gender measures of board diversity.

Central to these concerns is shareholders’ desire that boards develop the skills, expertise, awareness, and experience to accurately assess and effectively manage emerging risks, such as cyber and environmental risks, and ensure that boards are constantly searching for weaknesses (and, when and where appropriate, soliciting external help to identify blind spots).

 

Traditional concerns still exist, but companies are making progress

 

More traditional approaches to increasing accountability, such as majority vote standards and annual elections in the director election process—features that are near-ubiquitous in the largest companies—have been adopted in greater frequency by smaller companies. Many problematic governance practices, such as poison pills, are also increasingly rare.

 

Investors are more accepting of alternative independent board leadership structures

 

Demonstrating that governance is both a give and take endeavor, investors are more accepting of alternative forms of independent board leadership. Whereas investors have historically favored independent chairs, many are increasingly comfortable with an alternative structure whereby a strong and empowered lead independent director counterbalances a combined chair/CEO.

 

Director compensation increased sharply

 

A new feature in this year’s study is an evaluation of director pay covering the preceding five years. While compensation disclosure for non-employee directors is not new itself, the rules and guidelines governing director pay disclosure have only recently standardized. Beginning in December 2006, SEC rules required the disclosure of director pay in a standardized table format. This disclosure increased transparency and comparability between companies. Additionally, both the NYSE and NASDAQ require that boards consider director pay when determining director independence for purposes of meeting listing requirements.

Director compensation has received increased scrutiny in recent years, particularly given rising pay levels and high-profile shareholder lawsuits alleging excessive pay. Amid this atmosphere, many companies have taken a proactive approach to director compensation programs, mainly through altering equity plans or, in a few rare instances, introducing ballot items.

As companies weigh the potential benefits of changing director pay structures, median pay continues to rise. In fact, non-employee director compensation grew 17 percent between 2012 and 2016, while median CEO pay in the S&P 500 (reported in ISS’ 2016 US Compensation Postseason Report) rose by less than 10 percent. One positive development is the streamlining observed among director compensation programs. For example, the elimination of meeting and telephonic meeting fees in many compensation structures.

 

Increased scrutiny of certain board practices has necessitated a more detailed review

 

Previous versions of the board study included an in-depth snapshot of new-director demographics and trends, such as tenure, refreshment, and diversity. As these components of board composition have become a significant part of the governance conversation, ISS has produced in-depth studies on each of these issues.

For a vast and comprehensive look at board refreshment trends in the U.S., please see the joint ISS/IRRC study, Board Refreshment Trends at S&P 1500 Firms.

For a look at gender parity advancement on boards in the U.S. and around the world, please see the April 2016 joint study carried out by ISS and European Women on Boards, Gender Diversity on European Boards—Realizing Europe’s Potential: Progress and Challenges, and ISS’ December 2016 study, Gender Diversity on Boards—A Review of Global Trends.

The complete publication is available here.

_____________________________________

*Rob Yates is Vice President at Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. This post is based on an ISS publication by Mr. Yates, Rachel Hedrick, and Andrew Borek.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 13 avril 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 13 avril 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

harvard_forum_corpgovernance_small

 

 

 

  1. Director Appointments—Is It “Who You Know”?
  2. Voluntary Corporate Governance, Proportionate Regulation, and Small Firms: Evidence from Venture Issuers
  3. Should Executive Pay Be More “Long-Term”?
  4. Dealmakers Expect a “Trump Bump” on M&A
  5. A Legal Theory of Shareholder Primacy
  6. Earnouts: Devil in the Details
  7. On Regulatory Reform, Better Process Means Better Progress
  8. Tread Lightly When Tweaking Sarbanes-Oxley
  9. Corporations and Human Life
  10. Is Executive Pay Broken?

Colloque sur la gouvernance et la performance | Une perspective internationale


C’est avec plaisir que je partage l’information et l’invitation à un important colloque intitulé « Gouvernance et performance : une perspective internationale » qui aura lieu à l’Université McGill les 11 et 12 mai 2017.

C’est mon collègue, le professeur Félix ZOGNING NGUIMEYA, Ph.D., Adm.A., qui est le responsable de l’organisation de ce colloque en gouvernance à l’échelle internationale.

À la lecture du programme, vous constaterez que les organisateurs n’ont ménagé aucun effort pour apporter un éclairage très large de ce phénomène.

Ce colloque traite des récents développements et des sujets émergents en matière de gouvernance. La gouvernance, comme thématique transversale, est abordée dans tous ses aspects : gouvernance d’entreprise, gouvernance économique, gouvernance publique, en lien avec la création de valeur ou la performance des organisations, des politiques ou des programmes concernés. Dans chacun des contextes, les travaux souligneront l’effet des mécanismes de gouvernance sur la performance des organisations, institutions ou collectivités.

La perspective internationale du colloque a pour but d’examiner les modèles et structures de gouvernance présents dans différents pays et dans les différentes organisations, selon que ces modèles dépendent fortement du système juridique, du modèle économique et social, ainsi que le poids relatif des différentes parties prenantes. Les contributions sont donc attendues des chercheurs et professionnels de plusieurs champs disciplinaires, notamment les sciences économiques, les sciences juridiques, les sciences politiques, la comptabilité, la finance, l’administration et la stratégie.

Je vous invite à consulter le site web du colloque : https://gouvernance.splashthat.com/

Vous trouverez le programme détaillé du colloque à l’adresse suivante : http://www.acfas.ca/evenements/congres/programme/85/400/449/c

Le plus gros fonds souverain au monde veut plafonner la paie des patrons | Journal de Montréal


Selon un communiqué de l’Agence France Presse, publié le 7 avril 2017 dans le Journal de Montréal, « le fonds souverain de la Norvège, le plus gros au monde, a peaufiné vendredi son image d’investisseur responsable en réclamant un plafonnement de la rémunération des patrons et la transparence fiscale des entreprises ».

Bonne lecture !

Le fonds souverain de la Norvège, le plus gros au monde, a peaufiné vendredi son image d’investisseur responsable en réclamant un plafonnement de la rémunération des patrons et la transparence fiscale des entreprises

 

Dans chaque entreprise, le « conseil d’administration devrait (…) dévoiler un plafond pour la rémunération totale » du directeur général « pour l’année à venir », estime la banque centrale norvégienne, chargée de gérer le fonds, dans un nouveau « document de position ».

À une époque où les très gros salaires décollent, cette prise de position est d’autant plus importante que le fonds est présent au capital de quelque 9 000 entreprises à travers le monde, représentant 1,3 % de la capitalisation globale.

Par son poids et par sa gestion généralement jugée exemplaire en matière de transparence et d’éthique, le mastodonte scandinave donne souvent le « pas » pour d’autres investisseurs.

Résultats de recherche d'images pour « fonds souverain norvégien »

« C’est une très bonne nouvelle », s’est réjouie Manon Aubry, porte-parole d’Oxfam France. « Il s’agit d’un levier qui peut avoir un impact important sur le comportement des entreprises », a-t-elle expliqué à l’AFP, soulignant que le fonds norvégien n’était pas le seul à avoir pris ce genre de décision.

La contestation a un effet, parfois. Le directeur général du géant pétrolier britannique BP, Bob Dudley, a ainsi vu sa rémunération diminuer de 40 % en 2016, un an après un vote des actionnaires contre une hausse de son salaire, uniquement consultatif, mais offrant un désaveu cinglant.

Sous la pression de la classe politique et des syndicats, six hauts dirigeants de Bombardier ont accepté dimanche au Canada de réduire de moitié l’augmentation de 50 % initialement promise. Volkswagen a aussi décidé le mois dernier de plafonner les salaires pour les membres de son conseil d’administration, une question souvent débattue en Allemagne.

« Say on pay »

Le principe du « say on pay » vient par ailleurs d’entrer pour la première fois dans le droit français. Le vote des actionnaires en assemblée générale sur la rémunération des dirigeants est désormais contraignant grâce à la loi « Sapin 2 », dont le décret d’application a été publié en mars.

En 2016, la rémunération des dirigeants de trois entreprises, dont Carlos Ghosn chez Renault et Patrick Kron chez Alstom, avait été rejetée par les actionnaires. Mais ces avis, alors purement consultatifs, n’avaient pas été pris en compte par les conseils d’administration.

Longtemps peu regardant en la matière, le fonds norvégien s’implique de plus en plus dans la gouvernance des entreprises dont il est actionnaire. Il a par exemple voté l’an dernier contre la politique de rémunération des dirigeants d’Alphabet (Google), Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan ou encore Sanofi, selon le Financial Times.

« Nous ne sommes plus en position, en tant qu’investisseur, de dire que c’est une question sur laquelle on n’a pas d’avis », a déclaré au FT le patron du fonds, Yngve Slyngstad, en notant que le « say on pay » se répandait dans toujours plus de pays.

Jugeant que cela contribuerait à aligner les intérêts du patron sur ceux des actionnaires, le nouveau document prône aussi pour qu’« une part significative de la rémunération totale annuelle (soit) fournie en actions bloquées pour au moins cinq ans, et de préférence dix ans, indépendamment d’une démission ou d’un départ en retraite » et sans condition de performances.

Non à l’optimisation fiscale 

Dans un autre document publié vendredi, la Banque de Norvège a aussi exigé la transparence fiscale de la part des entreprises.

« Les impôts devraient être payés là où la valeur économique est générée », souligne-t-elle notamment, visiblement hostile à l’optimisation fiscale, technique légale qui consiste à déplacer les bénéfices là où l’imposition est moindre.

Sur le Vieux Continent, des géants comme Apple, Starbucks ou Fiat ont eu ces dernières années maille à partir avec la Commission européenne pour avoir tiré parti d’avantages fiscaux indus.

Le fonds norvégien conforte ainsi son image d’investisseur responsable.

Conformément à un vote du Parlement en 2015, le fonds — alimenté, paradoxalement, par les revenus pétroliers de l’État — se refuse à investir dans les entreprises, compagnies minières ou énergéticiens, où le charbon, néfaste pour le climat, représente plus de 30 % de l’activité.

Il n’est pas non plus autorisé à investir dans les entreprises coupables de violations graves des droits de l’Homme, dans celles qui fabriquent des armes nucléaires ou « particulièrement inhumaines » ou encore dans les producteurs de tabac.

LA CIRCULAIRE DE DIRECTION : PLUS QU’UNE OBLIGATION RÉGLEMENTAIRE !


Vous trouverez, ci-dessous, un article publié par Bridgit Courey et Hugue St-Jean, et paru dans le bulletin Dialog d’avril de PCI | Perrault Conseil.

Les auteurs mettent l’accent sur l’importance de la circulaire de la direction, plus particulièrement pour toutes les questions traitant de la rémunération des dirigeants.

Bonne lecture !

LA CIRCULAIRE DE DIRECTION : PLUS QU’UNE OBLIGATION RÉGLEMENTAIRE !

On peut débattre en longueur de la rémunération octroyée aux dirigeants de Bombardier, mais une chose nous apparaît certaine : l’organisation a manqué une belle opportunité de communiquer avec toutes les parties intéressées. Un des outils qui a particulièrement été sous-utilisé est la circulaire annuelle de direction, celle-là même où les journalistes puisent leurs données !

La divulgation de la rémunération des dirigeants et des administrateurs est trop souvent approchée comme un exercice de conformité ayant peu de valeur ajoutée. Or, elle peut remplir multiples autres desseins, notamment :

  1. Mettre l’accent sur les réalisations de l’organisation;
  2. Expliquer le contexte et les motivations sous-jacents aux changements à la politique de rémunération et/ou à la rémunération octroyée, par exemple : Restructuration, fusions et acquisitions, crise économique, croissance exponentielle, expansion géographique, renouvellement de l’équipe de direction, virement stratégique, etc.
  3. Clarifier le lien entre la stratégie de l’entreprise et le choix d’intéressements à moyen et à long terme et leur acquisition;
  4. Distinguer la rémunération versée de la rémunération qui pourrait être monnayée seulement si/lorsque la stratégie porte fruits dans le futur et, après coup, voir comment elle se compare au rendement aux investisseurs.

Alors que l’engagement et le dialogue avec l’ensemble des parties prenantes s’intensifient, il serait négligent de se passer de la circulaire pour optimiser l’impact de votre discours et limiter les aléas résultant d’une information mal comprise ou prise hors contexte.

Un langage et un format clairs, concis et adaptés à la compréhension générale, avec un accent sur les messages clés, vous permettront d’atteindre vos objectifs.

Une saine tension entre le CA et la direction : Gage d’une bonne gouvernance | Billet revisité


Dans son édition d’avril 2016, le magazine Financier Worldwide présente une excellente analyse de la dynamique d’un conseil d’administration efficace. Pour l’auteur, il est important que le président du conseil soit habileté à exercer un niveau de saine tension entre les administrateurs et la direction de l’entreprise.

Il n’y a pas de place pour la complaisance au conseil. Les membres doivent comprendre que leur rôle est de veiller aux « intérêts supérieurs » de l’entreprise, notamment des propriétaires-actionnaires, mais aussi d’autres parties prenantes.

Le PDG de l’entreprise est recruté par le CA pour faire croître l’entreprise et exécuter une stratégie liée à son modèle d’affaires. Lui aussi doit travailler en fonction des intérêts des actionnaires… mais c’est la responsabilité fiduciaire du CA de s’en assurer en mettant en place les mécanismes de surveillance appropriés.

La théorie de l’agence stipule que le CA représente l’autorité souveraine de l’entreprise (puisqu’il possède la légitimité que lui confèrent les actionnaires). Le CA confie à un PDG (et à son équipe de gestion) le soin de réaliser les objectifs stratégiques retenus. Les deux parties — le Board et le Management — doivent bien comprendre leurs rôles respectifs, et trouver les bons moyens pour gérer la tension inhérente à l’exercice de la gouvernance et de la gestion.

Les administrateurs doivent s’efforcer d’apporter une valeur ajoutée à la gestion en conseillant la direction sur les meilleures orientations à adopter, et en instaurant un climat d’ouverture, de soutien et de transparence propice à la réalisation de performances élevées.

Il est important de noter que les actionnaires s’attendent à la loyauté des administrateurs ainsi qu’à leur indépendance d’esprit face à la direction. Les administrateurs sont élus par les actionnaires et sont donc imputables envers eux. C’est la raison pour laquelle le conseil d’administration doit absolument mettre en place un processus d’évaluation de ces membres et divulguer sa méthodologie.

Également, comme mentionné dans un billet daté du 5 juillet 2016 (la séparation des fonctions de président du conseil et de président de l’entreprise [CEO] est-elle généralement bénéfique ?), les autorités réglementaires, les firmes spécialisées en votation et les experts en gouvernance suggèrent que les rôles et les fonctions de président du conseil d’administration soient distincts des attributions des PDG (CEO).

En fait, on suppose que la séparation des fonctions, entre la présidence du conseil et la présidence de l’entreprise (CEO), est généralement bénéfique à l’exercice de la responsabilité de fiduciaire des administrateurs, c’est-à-dire que des pouvoirs distincts permettent d’éviter les conflits d’intérêts, tout en rassurant les actionnaires.

Cependant, cette pratique cède trop souvent sa place à la volonté bien arrêtée de plusieurs PDG d’exercer le pouvoir absolu, comme c’est encore le cas pour plusieurs entreprises américaines. Pour plus d’information sur ce sujet, je vous invite à consulter l’article suivant : Séparation des fonctions de PDG et de président du conseil d’administration | Signe de saine gouvernance !

Le Collège des administrateurs de sociétés (CAS) offre une formation spécialisée de deux jours sur le leadership à la présidence.

 

Banque des ASC
Gouvernance et leadership à la présidence | 4 et 5 mai 2017, à Montréal | 7 et 8 novembre 2017, à Québec

 

Vous trouverez, ci-dessous, l’article du Financier Worldwide qui illustre assez clairement les tensions existantes entre le CA et la direction, ainsi que les moyens proposés pour assurer la collaboration entre les deux parties.

J’ai souligné en gras les passages clés.

Bonne lecture ! Vos commentaires sont appréciés.

 

In this age of heightened risk, the need for effective governance has caused a dynamic shift in the role of the board of directors. Cyber security, rapid technological growth and a number of corporate scandals resulting from the financial crisis of 2008, all underscore the necessity of boards working constructively with management to ensure efficient oversight, rather than simply providing strategic direction. This is, perhaps, no more critical than in the middle market, where many companies often don’t have the resources larger organisations have to attract board members, but yet their size requires more structure and governance than smaller companies might need.

Following the best practices of high-performing boards can help lead to healthy tension between management and directors for improved results and better risk management. We all know conflict in the boardroom might sometimes be unavoidable, as the interests of directors and management don’t necessarily always align. Add various personalities and management styles to the mix, and discussions can sometimes get heated. It’s important to deal with situations when they occur in order to constructively manage potential differences of opinion to create a healthy tension that makes the entire organisation stronger.

Various conflict management styles can be employed to ensure that any potential boardroom tension within your organisation is healthy. If an issue seems minor to one person but vital to the rest of the group, accommodation can be an effective way to handle tension. If minor issues arise, it might be best to simply avoid those issues, whereas collaboration should be used with important matters. Arguably, this is the best solution for most situations and it allows the board to effectively address varying opinions. If consensus can’t be reached, however, it might become necessary for the chairman or the lead director to use authoritarian style to manage tension and make decisions. Compromise might be the best approach when the board is pressed for time and needs to take immediate action.

April 2016 Issue

The board chairperson can be integral to the resolution process, helping monitor and manage boardroom conflict. With this in mind, boards should elect chairs with the proven ability to manage all personality types. The chairperson might also be the one to initiate difficult conversations on topics requiring deeper scrutiny. That said, the chairperson cannot be the only enforcer; directors need to assist in conflict resolution to maintain a proper level of trust throughout the group. And the CEO should be proactive in raising difficult issues as well, and boards are typically most effective when the CEO is confident, takes the initiative in learning board best practices and works collaboratively.

Gone are the days of the charismatic, autocratic CEO. Many organisations have separated the role of CEO and chairperson, and have introduced vice chairs and lead directors to achieve a better balance of power. Another way to ensure a proper distribution of authority is for the board to pay attention to any red flags that might be raised by the CEO’s behaviour. For example, if a CEO feels they have all the answers, doesn’t respect the oversight of the board, or attempts to manage or marginalise the board, the chairperson and board members will likely need to be assertive, rather than simply following the CEO’s lead. Initially this might seem counterintuitive, however, in the long-run, this approach will likely create a healthier tension than if they simply ‘followed the leader’.

Everyone in the boardroom needs to understand their basic functions for an effective relationship -executives should manage, while the board oversees. In overseeing, the board’s major responsibilities include approving strategic plans and goals, selecting a CEO, determining a mission or purpose, identifying key risks, and providing oversight of the compliance of corporate policies and regulations. Clearly understanding the line between operations and strategy is also important.

Organisations with the highest performing boards are clear on the appropriate level of engagement for the companies they represent – and that varies from one organisation to the next. Determining how involved the board will be and what type of model the board will follow is key to effective governance and a good relationship with management. For example, an entity that is struggling financially might require a more engaged board to help put it back on track.

Many elements, such as tension, trust, diversity of thought, gender, culture and expertise can impact the delicate relationship between the board and management. Good communication is vital to healthy tension. Following best practices for interaction before, during and after board meetings can enhance conflict resolution and board success.

Before each board meeting, management should prepare themselves and board members by distributing materials and the board package in a timely manner. These materials should be reviewed by each member, with errors or concerns forwarded to the appropriate member of management, and areas of discussion highlighted for the chair. An agenda focused on strategic issues and prioritised by importance of matters can also increase productivity.

During the meeting, board members should treat one another with courtesy and respect, holding questions held until after presentations (or as the presenter directs). Board-level matters should be discussed and debated if necessary, and a consensus reached. Time spent on less strategic or pressing topics should be limited to ensure effective meetings. If appropriate, non-board-level matters might be handed to management for follow-up.

Open communication should also continue after board meetings. Sometimes topics discussed during board meetings take time to digest. When this happens, board members should connect with appropriate management team members to further discuss or clarify. There are also various board committee meetings that need to occur between board meetings. Board committees should be doing the ‘heavy lifting’ for the full board, making the larger group more efficient and effective. Other more informal interactions can further strengthen the relationship between directors and management.

Throughout the year, the board’s engagement with management can be broadened to include discussions with more key players. Gaining multiple perspectives by interacting with other areas of the organisation, such as general counsels, external and internal auditors, public relations and human resources, can help the board identify and address key risks. By participating in internal and external company events, board members get to know management and the company’s customers on a first-hand basis.

Of course, a strategy is necessary for the board as well, as regulatory requirements have increased, leading to greater pressure for high-quality performance. Effective boards maintain a plan for development and succession. They also implement CEO and board evaluation processes to ensure goals are being met and board members are performing optimally. In addition to the evaluation process, however, board members must hold themselves totally accountable for instilling trust in the boardroom.

Competition in today’s increasingly global and complex business environment is fierce, and calls for new approaches for success. Today’s boards need to build on established best practices and create good relationships with management to outperform competitors. The highest performing boards are clear on their functions, and understand the level of engagement appropriate for the companies they support. They are accountable and set the right tone, while being able to discern true goals and aspirations from trendiness. They are capable of understanding and dealing with the ‘big issues’ and are strategic in their planning and implementation of approaches that work for the companies they serve. With the ever-changing risk universe, the ability to work with the right amount of healthy tension is essential to effective governance.

_______________________________________

Hussain T. Hasan is on the Consulting Leadership team as well as a board member at RSM US LLP.

Compte rendu hebdomadaire de la Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | 30 mars 2017


Voici le compte rendu hebdomadaire du forum de la Harvard Law School sur la gouvernance corporative au 30 mars 2017.

J’ai relevé les principaux billets.

Bonne lecture !

 

harvard_forum_corpgovernance_small

  1. Is the American Public Corporation in Trouble?
  2. Corporate Governance Update: Preparing for and Responding to Shareholder Activism in 2017
  3. New York Cybersecurity Regulations for Financial Institutions Enter Into Effect
  4. Does the Market Value Professional Directors?
  5. Did Say-on-Pay Reduce or “Compress” CEO Pay?
  6. The Americas – 2017 Proxy Season Preview
  7. Controlling Systemic Risk Through Corporate Governance
  8. 2017 Institutional Investor Survey
  9. 2017 Compensation Committee Guide
  10. Corporate Employee-Engagement and Merger Outcomes
  11. The Investor Stewardship Group: An Inflection Point in U.S. Corporate Governance?