KPMG: Her er revisionsudvalgets agenda i 2024: I en guide oplyses det, at ”matters requiring the audit committee’s attention are expected to include: disclosures regarding the impact of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, government sanctions, supply chain disruptions, heightened cybersecurity risk, climate change, inflation, interest rates, market volatility, and the risk of a global recession; preparation of forward-looking cash-flow estimates; impairment of non-financial assets, including goodwill and other intangible assets; the impact of events and trends on liquidity; • accounting for financial assets (fair value); and going concern. With companies making more tough calls in the current environment, regulators are emphasising the importance of well-reasoned judgments and transparency, including contemporaneous documentation to demonstrate that the company applied a rigorous process. Given the fluid nature of the long-term environment, disclosure of changes in judgments, estimates, and controls may be required more frequently.”
Engelske CEO’er kræver store lønforhøjelser ved at henvise til topchefer i USA, men udløser aktionæroprør i UK-baserede Smith & Nephew: The Guardian skriver, at ”Smith & Nephew had a shareholder revolt on Wednesday when nearly half of voting investors rejected the medical device manufacturer’s plans to raise its chief executive’s pay packet to $11.8m (£9.5m). But the company’s pay policy, which will increase the maximum payout for Deepak Nath – who is based in Texas – by nearly a third, was narrowly approved, despite 43% of votes cast against the proposals at its annual general meeting in Watford. The firm is among a growing number of companies that have been arguing for an increase in executive pay to match US peers. Smith & Nephew’s chair, Rupert Soames, who is also chair of the business lobby group the CBI, has said that the proportion of revenues a company makes overseas should be taken into consideration, meaning it should not be benchmarked against UK-listed rivals.”
Stanford-undersøgelse: De store investorer overser “S”et i ESG ved investeringsbeslutninger: De skriver, at “European and North American investors are pretty much on the same page when it comes to ranking the relative importance of E, S, and G in their investment decisions. More than two-thirds of all respondents put governance factors at the top of the list, with environmental factors coming next and social factors barely registering at all. The only exceptions in the social category were data security and privacy, which are of particular concern to European investors. “The most surprising finding is the near-collapse of social factors within the ESG framework (…) The all-encompassing nature of ESG is falling in on -itelf, and investors are retreating to focus on a shorter list of concepts that drive the bottom line: Prominent social issues like workplace diversity and internal pay equity are considered secondary to governance and the environment, and rank even lower than more pedestrian factors like data safety.”
Forskere sætter kritisk lup på monopoliseret proxyrådgiverindustri: I forskningspapir med titlen “SEVEN QUESTIONS ABOUT PROXY ADVISORS” hedder det, at ”the proxy advisory industry—in which independent thirdparty firms provide voting recommendations to institutional investors for matters on the annual proxy—has grown in size and controversy. Despite a large number of smaller players, the proxy advisory industry is essentially a duopoly with Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis controlling almost the entire market.1 The recommendations of these firms are prominent, especially in matters such as contested director elections, the approval of large pay packages, corporate takeovers, and other closely contended issues. Nevertheless, the degree to which these firms influence voting outcomes and corporate choices is not established, nor is the role they play in the market.”
Morten W. Langer
