During 2018 there have been a number of governance reforms introduced which will impact both companies and institutional investors. The new regime will begin to apply to accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2019. In effect, the new information will be reported against in 2020, unless companies and/or investors decide to adopt and […]
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Four billion reasons not to fix the proxy plumbing Can the SEC resist the lobbying deluge and restore essential share ownership rights? Since the GFC, regulators have been working to make markets and economies safer. Part of that process has been to encourage market disruption by fostering better competition and increasing diversity. Now it’s time […]
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The European Commission’s Action Plan on Sustainable Finance, launched last week, was broadly welcomed by responsible investment groups and those representing the financial sector. The Commission’s intention is to develop a financial system that supports the EU’s climate and sustainable development agenda. The publication of the action plan followed the work of the high-level group of […]
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The London Stock Exchange has confirmed that it has strengthened the corporate governance requirements for AIM companies from the 28th September this year with new entrants to the market having to comply with the rule from the end of March 2018. The board of directors at AIM companies must now provide a recognised corporate governance code […]
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The International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) are urging institutional investors to respond to the latest consultation from the Hong Kong stock exchange which proposed allowing certain companies with dual-class share structures to list. The proposals form part of the stock exchanges aspiration to be a more attractive place to list […]
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The chair of the UK’s House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has written to the top 25 pension funds in the UK to ask how they manage climate risks and their potential impact on pension savings as part of its inquiry into green finance. This follows the endorsement by the British government of the Task-Force on […]
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Institutional investors in Rio Tinto, have filed a resolution calling on the mining group to cease membership of the Minerals Council of Australasia (MCA) which they believe is primarily a lobby group for the coal industry. Rio Tinto will hold its UK AGM in April and its Australian AGM in May. The shareholder action has […]
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The Investor Agenda, which provides a framework for investors to take action to tackle climate change, has been launched. The plan was developed by seven organisations promoting carbon reduction and responsible investment: Ceres, Asia Investor Group on Climate Change, CDP, Investor Group on Climate Change, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, Principles for Responsible Investment and UNEP Finance Initiative. Ceres recently […]
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Corporate governance researcher Equilar has found a median chief executive officer (CEO) pay ratio of 140:1 following an anonymous survey of 356 US public companies. Equilar asked the companies how they plan to report on this in their 2018 proxy statements. In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) passed a ruling that required public companies to report the ratio […]
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