Rapporter og tendenser

Bestyrelsens arbejde med risikostyring har aldrig været vigtigere end nu: I et 24 sider notat med overskriften ” Risk Management and the Board of Directors ” skriver en gruppe advokater fra et af de førende amerikanske advokatfirmaer, at ”The risk oversight function of the board of directors has never been more critical and challenging than it is today. Rapidly advancing technologies, new business models, dealmaking and interconnected supply chains continue to add to the complexity of corporate operations and the business risks inherent in those operations. The evolving political environment further exacerbates the risks that corporations face.

Corporate behavior has been blamed for accelerating environmental degradation and aggravating disparities in income and wealth. In addition, safety scandals and product failures have affected public confidence in the ability of corporations to manage business risk and have given rise to skepticism as to whether companies are sufficiently prioritizing consumer and product safety. Environmental, social, governance and sustainability-related issues have become mainstream business topics, encompassing a wide range of issues including business model resilience, employee wages, healthcare, training and retraining, income inequality, supply chain labor standards and corporate culture, as well as climate change. The reputational damage to companies, boards and management teams that fail to properly manage risk is substantial.”

Krig mellem tilsynsmyndighed og proxy advisors, som muligvis tvinges til at fremlægge deres analyse til selskaber, før investorerne ser dem: ”A war of words has broken out between investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the regulator’s controversial proposal to amend its proxy voting rules. “On 5 November, the SEC proposed new changes to how proxy advisory firms operate – with some criticising the move as a way to limit investors’ ability to hold public companies accountable. Under the proposed changes, proxy advisory firms would have to supply companies with advance copies of their advice before it goes to investors.

Companies would be able to review these documents so they can “identify errors in the proxy voting advice”. Analysts would also be required to include the company’s objections in a finalreport. In addition, the SEC is proposing that shareholders must hold a minimum $2,000 stock in a company for at least three years before they can require a company to include a proposal in its proxy statement.”

Engelske topchefer gik sidste år mere end ti procent ned i samlet aflønning: ”The average pay of the UK’s top CEOs has fallen by more than 10% to £5.1m, though concerns remain this figure is still too high. The latest Manifest Total Remuneration Survey is regarded as the authoritative study on UK executive pay, showed CEOs of the 100 largest UK companies were paid a combined total of just over £500m in the 2018/2019 financial year. While the average pay dropped 11% from the previous year’s figure of £5.7m, the majority of stakeholders and a number of fund managers still consider this pay to be unnecessarily high, the report stated. According to the survey, executive pay is now back to the lower levels seen in 2014 after increasing 18% in 2018. “The main reason for this is the extreme outliers have been curtailed,” the report states.”

BigTech er langt større trusler mod bankerne end Fin-Techs: I et forskningspapir med titlen ” FinTech, BigTech, and the Future of Banks ”, fortælles at ”BigTech firms can adopt FinTech innovations much more easily than banks as they already have a digital platform in which these innovations can be incorporated. Further, BigTech firms have a large customer base. As a result, BigTech firms are potentially more of a threat for the future of banks than FinTech firms. At the same time, however, the advantages of BigTech will manifest themselves in consumer finance and lending to SMEs, not in investment banking. After having seen the U.S. banking system evolve towards the universal bank model, we may see it evolve towards a system with large investment or merchant banks and large consumer banks. Such an evolution could be problematic as a strong deposit base was an asset for banks during the global financial crisis and is likely to be so in other periods of stress.”