March 24 2008

Upcoming AGMs to watch in the US in regards in shareholder activism: “Will management win out? Will directors get booted? Can activists win out? One certainty: There will be blood.” More on “say-on-pay”. From Report on Business, could excecutive pay packages be fueling “high risk business practices that are toppling giants today”? In Germany, shareholders claim a ”rare victory”.

March 17 2008

Some governance issues in the news: more coverage of Marks & Spencer’s recent controversial move to combine the roles of their CEO and Chair– major shareholders are calling the change “unwelcome”. On the need for continued vigilance to ensure executive compensation is under control in Canada, particularly in light of the subprime mortgage problems in the US.

March 11 2007

So the CCBE Blog returns to life after a hiatus. And what have we been doing in the meantime? Preliminary research has begun into the corporate governance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and we’ve started work on our regular TSX Composite Index as proxy season gets underway.

Along those lines, check out the Risk Metrics’ Blog’s 2008 Proxy Preview, focusing on proposals for advisory vote (“say on pay”) measures, among other considerations pertaining to executive compensation. After the CIBC Annual meeting in late February, The Financial Post on the rejection of the “say on pay” proposal, reporting that advocates still claimed victory in the fight to give investors a voice in how much executives are paid.

In Britain, the elevation of Marks & Spencer CEO to Chair makes shareholders uneasy and breaches City corporate governance codes. Study shows companies with good governance outperforming those with the worst. On the growth of the corporate governance movement, and the resulting economic boost: “‘You need some level of governance, and only then will investors come in… And when investors come in, they demand better disclosure and transparency. It feeds on itself.’” And the Wall Street fallout from Spitzer scandal.