ShareSoc Issues Response to Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform

PRESS RELEASE 89 20/02/2017

How to fix the ills of the UK Corporate Governance scene? ShareSoc and UKSA have given their solutions in a response to the Government Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform. We have emphasised that the following are the key issues:

1. Engagement between shareholders and companies is not working. Shareholders are not exercising effective stewardship and control, and boards are failing to fulfil their fiduciary obligations to members. As a result, public trust in business is low. This is bad for business and for long term investors. It needs to be addressed.

2. The ownership structure of public corporations is a problem. It means that beneficial owners’ interests and views are not represented adequately. The bulk of public company shares are controlled by institutions whose interests are often not aligned with those of the beneficial owners.

3. Shareholder Committees: We strongly support the concept of Shareholder Committees, provided that they represent the interests of all shareholders, including private investors and investors in employee share plans.

4. Problems in the voting chain: This is not highlighted in the Green Paper. The proliferation of shareholders who are not directly interested in the companies in which they own shares– for example, intermediaries, ETFs, tracker funds and other index-related funds – corrupts the governance and stewardship process and the associated governance checks and balances. This is exacerbated by stock-lending. This prejudices the concept of corporate governance based on shareholder oversight, and places too much influence over our companies in the hands of traders – the ultimate cause of short-termism.

5. Disenfranchisement of individual shareholders: The Green Paper recognises the problem that most private investors are now obliged to hold their shares in pooled nominee accounts wherein shares are legally owned by an intermediary. The ability and rights of informed individual investors to influence the affairs of companies in which they have invested is fundamental to good governance.

6. Complexity of boardroom pay: Systems of remuneration for directors have become excessively complex, as a result of the structural governance weaknesses identified in the Green Paper. The mechanisms for triggering bonus payments have become opaque, the quantum of the payouts is often impossible to predict, the true motivational impact has become questionable while the reporting to shareholders has become cumbersome and often obscure to the point of incomprehension.

7. Weaknesses of long-term incentives: Boards and their advisors have taken advantage of the lack of voting integrity to implement complex LTIPs as a major part of the overall remuneration package. It is widely accepted that the longer a reward is deferred the less motivational impact it has on the recipient. It is also accepted that for performance incentives to work, the achievement of outcomes must be within the control of the recipient. The current system of long-term incentives fails both these tests. It can encourage perverse behaviour which we do not want from those who run our companies.

Shareholder Committees are a core part of the solution to the problems of corporate governance. There are many other elements of governance and control that can be improved and we have commented in our response on those where we have specific knowledge. However, without Shareholder Committees, and concomitant reform to restore the rights of individual shareholders, other changes to corporate governance are unlikely to produce meaningful change.

More Information

Our responses to the specific questions set out in the Green Paper are given here:https://www.sharesoc.org/ShareSoc-UKSA-Green-Paper-Corporate-Governance-Response.pdf  (the submission was a joint one from ShareSoc and UKSA).

For further information please contact:

Roger Lawson

Deputy Chairman, ShareSoc

Telephone: 020-8295-0378

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.