Monday 7 October 2013

Jenkins Committee (1962) on shareholder oversight

Quite like this, given the opposition UK institutional investors have shown to reforms like annual elections, introduction of a binding vote on pay, vote on business reviews etc:

“To say that it is useless to provide investors with further safeguards which apparently they do not want and which, if provided, they will not use is a counsel of despair. Legislation can only proceed on the footing that new powers meeting real needs will, if created, be used.”

 On the other hand...

“It may be theoretically desirable that shareholders should have a more effective voice in the management of their company's business, of which they are the ultimate proprietors. As against this, no company's affairs can be managed properly, or indeed managed at all, otherwise than through a board of directors with a reasonably free hand to do what they think best in the interests of the company.”
Full doc here.

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