Rapporter og tendenser

Børsnoterede selskaber med flere aktieklasser igen på mode: I nyere forskningspapir heddet det, at ” The reported demise of dual-class stock appears to be, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “greatly exaggerated.” The end of dual-class stock was predicted following the decisions this summer by the major indices, including FTSE Russell (who operates the Russell 3000 index) and S&P Dow Jones (who manages the Dow Jones 500 index) to ban most companies that went public with multi-class stock. The decisions by the indices came at the behest of numerous institutional investors, especially passive funds, who argued that only companies with a single class of stock should be included in the most prominent indexes. The decisions by the major indexes led many market observers to conclude that companies going public would no longer adopt multi-class stock since it created the risk that these companies would be excluded from the indexes.”

Travle bestyrelsesmedlemmer er positive, hvis der er videnssynergi mellem selskaberne: I forskningspapir udredes fordele og ulemper ved travle bestyrelsesmedlemmer. Konklusion: Det kan både være et plus og et minus: ” Our empirical findings are consistent with directors’ monitoring efforts typically being characterized by strategic complementarity, regardless of the sign of the crossfirm monitoring synergies, but switching to being strategic substitutes in times of crisis. In light of these empirical findings, our model suggests that having a busy director on the board is typically only going to be harmful when the firms on whose boards she serves have so little in common informationally that tight time constraints result in negative monitoring synergies. Firms linked by positive monitoring synergies, on the other hand, are going to benefit from sharing directors, especially when their common directors become busier on another of their boards. “

UK: Regnskabsråd påpeger forbedringsmuligheder i årlig evaluering af rapporteringskvalitet: In its annual review of corporate reporting, the FRC said disclosures by large listed UK companies are generally good but detailed explanations and clarity could still be better. Improvements in recent years have been achieved following the introduction of the strategic report in 2013 and the FRC said these had got better again this year.” Af en præsentation fremgår det blandt andet, at ”we challenged companies where the review did not discuss all relevant aspects of performance, e.g.: o insufficient description and commentary on a major source of revenue; movement in underlying operating margin not adequately explained; and o segment EBITDA not discussed. • We challenged the comprehensiveness of the review of financial position, e.g.: movements in working capital not adequately explained; and limited discussion of financial position and cash flow (smaller companies). Strategic Report: We have continued to challenge the reporting of principal risks and uncertainties (PRU) including where: the description was unclear or insufficiently detailed; only one PRU was disclosed; and the judgements made by the directors in determining the reported PRUs were unclear such as risks relating to climate change in an oil and gas company.”

UK: Bestyrelser ikke gode til at inddrage ikke-hvide erhvervsfolk i bestyrelsen: En ny rapport fra det såkaldte Parker udvalg om “Diversity of UK Boards” har fokus på omfanget af ikke hvide bestyrelsesmedlemmer i UK virksomheder.” As a general matter, the Boardrooms of Britain’s leading public companies do not reflect the ethnic diversity of either the UK or the stakeholders that they seek to engage and represent. This Report highlights that ethnic minority representation in the Boardrooms across the FTSE 100 is disproportionately low, especially when looking at the number of UK citizen directors of colour.” “1,050 director positions in total UK citizen directors of colour represent only about 2% of the total director population 85 individual directors of colour (four hold two Board positions) Total directors of colour represent about 8% of the total (compared to 14% of the UK population).”