No platforms for shareholders! (or sandals)

Not sure what Paul Myners is playing at with his broadside on FT.com against corporate governance activists, who he says are 'sandal wearers'. He does like to play to his audience a bit, and one way to get company directors vigorously nodding in agreement is to have a pop at activists, so that I am sure is part of the explanation. Maybe he is also keen to beef up his business credentials after a few stray headlines suggesting he is a Gordo crony (as if there is such a thing!). And maybe he's just having a laugh.

Two points. First, I've never come across anyone on either the corp gov or SRI side who wears sandals. It's about as accurate a stereotype as the 'fat cat' wearing a bowler hat and smoking a cigar. Second, have a look at how he describes fund managers below. Apparently it's not your money people!

Paul Myners, chairman of Guardian Media Group and Land Securities, has hit out at "the open-toed sandal brigade", his description for corporate governance experts, because of their obsession with pay and board structure.

In a View from the Top interview published on FT.com on Wednesday, Mr Myners – who has also chaired Marks and Spencer and Gartmore – accused sticklers for corporate governance of losing sight of the economic value a company might create and called for breathing space from a series of reviews of UK corporate governance standards.

He said the UK system "was probably the best in the world", but warned investors against being too rigid in their interpretation of the UK’s combined code on good governance.

Mr Myners said: "We need to ... make sure that we don’t lose sight of the fact that companies exist to create value ... The open-toed sandal brigade that tends to speak on behalf of governance ... are so preoccupied with issues around remuneration and board structure that they fail to sit back and ask: ‘But is this right for the company?’"

Mr Myners said portfolio managers who make investment decisions often seemed at odds with corporate governance specialists. "I frequently find when I talk to institutional investors that the portfolio manager, who I regard as the owner of the shares of the company on whose board I sit, is very content with what we are doing, but there’s somebody in the basement who is responsible for governance who has got an issue, and there’s a dislocation between the two."