CEO's manipulate Politics to feather their nest

No surprise, the greedy clique populating the C-Suite in major corporations is abusing access to top-level politicians to feather their nest. But it would be so easy to neutralize this: CEO's are a tiny minority, just the 1000 top execs are facing tens of millions of ordinary workers and savers. So why can exec pay grow to ever more absurd levels? A major factor is the lack of voice that the many have with respect to their financial assets. While they provide the chips for the financial casino their 'fiduciaries' are either inept, don't care or are in cahoots with the CEO's they are investing the funds of their clients in. That the same CEO's are in charge of the companies that provide a major part of their assets under management (pension funds) aggravates the situation. So what is the solution? Political intervention? Or giving the real end investor a deciding voice with respect to how fiduciaries exercise their proxy votes on their behalf?
As C.E.O. Pay Packages Grow, Top Executives Have the President’s Ear

Dual-Class: The Consequences of Depriving Institutional Investors of Corporate Voting Rights

Dual-Class: The Consequences of Depriving Institutional Investors of Corporate Voting Rights
(25-May-2017)

Morgan Stanley CEO Pay nicked through

A $22 Mio pay package for the CEO while ROE is stuck at 8pct - need one say more? Amd how can Morgan Stanley be a 'fiduciary' for billions of investors' funds? Put the fox in charge of the henhouse?
(23-May-2017)

Mutual Fund Companies Have Significant Power

I never tire to repeat: top 20-30 investment institutions have enough clout to dictate significant corporate governance reforms.
Mutual Fund Companies Have Significant Power to Increase Corporate Transparency

Shareholder Lawsuits - an abusive practice

Nonsensical to sue the company YOU own. As the matter stands, one group gets enriched at the expense of the remaining shareholders.
REPORT: RBS is doubling a settlement offer to shareholders who are suing it for its ill-fated 2008 rights issue

Who runs the Show? Are Activist Investors given too much leeway?

News that 'Activist' investor Elliott Management and Arconic settle their longstanding battle should be seen for what it is: a black eye for corporate government. The number of board members handed to Elliott are out of proportion to the stake the firm has in Arconic. Giving investors board seats also creates conflicts of interest - hopes that 'Chinese Walls' work properly may be optimistic. Why create these conflicts when an arms-length relationship would do the job? And what role did the shareholders as a whole play in this 'agreement'? Who consulted them? And can the activist firm be involved in buying and selling the target's shares while negotiations are taking place?
Movers: Arconic and Elliott Settle

Big Investors rubberstamp Dubious Corporate Practices

As I never get tired of arguing, poor corporate governance is mainly due to the failure of the largest 20-30 investors to act as responsible owners. No need for zillions of smaller fund managers and private banks to get involved!
Fair Game: Dubious Corporate Practices Get a Rubber Stamp from Big Investors

End annual Pay Pantomime - some open questions

Richard Buxton's contribution to the Executive Pay debate is more than welcome. It partly supports the reform I have been proposing for many years. But while the CEO of Old Mutual Global Investors demands the end to convoluted Long-term Incentive Plans (LTIPs) he seems to be quite enthusiastic about long-term Equity Awards. To my mind this would only mean that excesses are easily shifted to the latter. It also is not clear why Equity Awards are necessarily a better - or even necessary - tool to align executive compensation with the interests of shareholders and the wider constituency or companies. Designing Equity Awards could be as tricky as designing effective LTIPs. Readers may remember that ProGov supports the end of all discriminatory compensation schemes and perks and the simple combination of salary and a percentage bonus that is awarded on an equal basis to the whole workforce. (15-May-2017)
End the annual executive pay pantomime (Paywall)

Tesco CEO Dave Lewis gets a £2.3 million bonus

This just demonstrates that the whole Corporate Governance Circus is just talk! Discriminatory, Arbitrary, Amoral and - most importantly - ineffective in terms of business management practice and theory! Is only political interference or well-organised naming and shaming combined with customer boycotts bringing an end to this abuse? (13-May-2017)
Tesco CEO Dave Lewis gets a £2.3 million bonus — but its less than last year

IOD pay proposal - nice try but not worth much

Lowering the threshold to force a 'rethink' on executive pay proposals will not achieve much. At best it will force firms to be more careful when submitting incentive plans, but a major change in levels of pay? unlikely! (11-May-2017)
One of the UK's biggest business groups thinks something should be done about executive pay

Overpaid UBS Chairman

American Companies do very well without the expensive decoration of Chairmen, why does UBS have to pay millions to Axel Weber, just to utter comments such as these? They have nothing to do with the bank's business! (8-May-2017)
UBS CHAIRMAN: 'Brexit is a time bomb' and Macron's win 'doesn't mean Europe is out of the woods'

Just Capital: Do Corporations do the "right thing"?

Interesting effort, but would it not be much easier to enshrine high standards in legislation?
nonprofit starts data revolution so corporations do the right thing - Business Insider