(Bloomberg Opinion) -- In an ordinary April, Corporate America would now be gearing up for proxy season, preparing for annual meetings and arguing with activist investors over strategy. Instead, companies find themselves on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, facing difficult choices about how best to protect workers, investors, and their businesses from the virus and its fallout...
Before the COVID-19 pandemic took over captains of industry were queuing up to champion stakeholder capitalism. A growing and long overdue consensus was emerging that shareholder primacy is not the be-all and end-all, and business should take a more long term view, looking after other stakeholder interests too including those of customers, employees and local communities...
A bankruptcy trust for creditors (including former workers and trade vendors) who lost significant sums of money in the Toys “R” Us Inc. (TRU) bankruptcy sued former Chief Executive Officer David Brandon, several other directors and executives of TRU, and its former private equity owners...
The more perspectives you have, the more likely your board is to have productive discussions that will better serve your business. Why is it important to have a diverse board of directors? A diverse board serves your company in many ways. The purpose of a board of directors is to guide the company – it is in the company's best interest to make sure that the board is capable of looking at issues and challenges from many perspectives...
As corporate boards work to navigate companies through this unprecedented time, directors can leverage digital governance solutions to optimize their communication as they respond to the virus and prepare for the proxy and AGM season...
The CARES Act restricts how much executive compensation can be paid by employers that avail themselves of loans and loan guarantees from the US Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund under Title IV of the CARES Act. Employers seeking this relief need to carefully assess the impact of these restrictions before applying for loans or loan guarantees. Participation in the Exchange Stabilization Fund is conditioned on complying with the executive compensation restrictions...
Amidst a global health crisis, there is little else discussed in today’s news cycles but, perhaps now more than ever, it is important to highlight the significant role diversity plays in problem solving...
Being a shareholder activist investor isn't such a good look right now. Executives are struggling to keep their companies afloat and their workers employed as the coronavirus spreads, and activists' demands in many cases seem less pertinent than they did just a few weeks ago. That's led many of the investors to walk away from campaigns or settle them early...
What is an activist investor, exactly? Well, it depends on who you ask. Defenders of activism -and activist investors themselves - will tell you that they take positions in mismanaged companies, redress the balance between greedy managers and deserving shareholders and create long-term value...
We continue to read about layoffs and the still-looming tsunami of downsizings. More than three million workers are expected to file for unemployment benefits before the summertime, due to the impact of the coronavirus...
There’s a lot of discussion these days about preparedness. Preparedness for the pandemic, preparedness for the recession, preparedness for the unknown and the unthinkable. And there’s a lot of discussion about blame as well. They should have seen it coming, they should have seen the signs, they should have had a plan...
It isn’t “Love in the Time of Cholera,” but companies will face significant challenges in corporate governance in the time of coronavirus...
Chief executives of large U.S. companies rode a more than decadelong bull market to a string of record pay days...
The COVID-19 outbreak – now officially categorized by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic – has quickly developed into a historic public health crisis. As the response to the COVID-19 pandemic evolves and companies take action to address the impacts of the pandemic on their businesses...
A governance board will identify risks to the company and strategies to ... private business owners get really clear that corporate governance is good ...
It's hardly a new complaint. Indeed, the headlines raging against shockingly big paychecks collected by United States CEOs have been regularly recirculated for years. This time, though, against a backdrop of consumers' concern over online privacy and frustration over lingering inequality, efforts from Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) shareholders have finally struck a receptive nerve that will incite actual change in how corporate chiefs are compensated. AT&T (NYSE:T) shareholders may be ready to jump on the bandwagon, too, after learning its CEO John Stankey received a 36% raise last year despite a string of ...
The lines between shareholder activist strategies and traditional private equity strategies are starting to become blurred.
Historically, private equity firms have adhered to the “rules of the road” set out by companies looking to explore strategic alternatives or realise monetisation events for their equity holders...
As the world reacts to the COVID-19 pandemic, directors on corporate boards play a vital role in navigating the path forward. Key issues facing corporate directors include:
Temporary succession planning could become a more pressing issue in the coming weeks, as companies prepare for the possibility of executive absences related to the coronavirus pandemic, governance experts say. Finance chiefs, long seen as a steady hand within an organization, are likely contenders to temporarily fill a chief executive or chairman post if needed...
Last fall, Senators Chuck Grassley, Tammy Baldwin, Joni Ernst, and Dick Durbin introduced the Whistleblower Programs Improvement Act , which protects financial whistleblowers who report internally from retaliation. This law mirrors the Whistleblower Protection Reform Act of 2019 which passed in the House of Representatives last spring...
March 17, 2020 In a rare vote against the company’s executive compensation package, a majority of Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) shareholders recently said no to the pay of CEO Steve Mollenkopf and the rest of the company’s named executive officers. Is this something that should change your views on ...
Despite the current challenges being endured by startup communities all over the world as a result of COVID-19, ongoing geopolitical tensions and stock market destabilization, 2020 is still a pretty good time to be a founder looking to grow a business in the burgeoning global tech sector...