I'm just a humble labour & corpgov wonk, so most of the time the kinds of things that interest me are buried in the business pages. But it feels like, as with the financial crisis, questions about who controls businesses and how, and in whose interests, they should be run are going to become big political issues once more.
As I've made clear previously I have *zero* knowledge of Covid-19 beyond what anyone else can read. All I can speak with any sense about is how I see it impacting the areas that I do know about. So here are a few quick thoughts about the direction of travel.
First up, we should expect a very sharp turn away from normal expectations across the market. Dividends are already being suspended by many companies as they admit they can't accurately forecast what will happen in the months ahead. Buybacks are not going to have a good crisis, and many are being suspended. Some boards have already announced that directors are cutting their own pay, more will surely follow. At work we've been trying to get companies to embrace common sense on this.
Second, some companies will get it badly wrong, and this may do them serious damage. EasyJet is taking a lot of flak for proceeding with a £174m dividend payment even as it seeks state support (it claims it is compelled to make the payment, which is something I need to check out). Ryanair spent millions on a share buyback during March even as it cancelled hundreds of flights. One report I read yesterday said it is cutting staff pay by 50% (O'Leary is taking the same pay cut, but he doesn't really need the money does he?). Getting this stuff wrong in an environment where 'license to operate' is very much in the state's hands may have long-term implications. Directors will get booted out, companies' reputations will be in tatters. It could be terminal in some cases.
Third, there will be even more pressure for a shift to a more stakeholder-oriented governance model. This argument has gained a lot of ground over the past few years, so as the Covid-19 crisis hits it's one of the ideas that are "lying around", as Milton Friedman put it. You can see already in proposals from people in both the UK and the US that a change in the nature of businesses most directly affected is already being put forward. I can imagine a consensus forming very quickly that bailed-out companies must protect employment, cut executive pay (and no bonuses, LTIPs etc, obvs), stop dividends and buybacks and (maybe?) bring employee representatives into the boardroom. This would be a very clear shift away from operating in the interests of shareholders, even 'enlightened' shareholder value. And it would be very hard to unpick afterwards. What happens to bailed out companies may well start to affect those further away from the epicentre.
Fourth, I think (and hope) the crisis will lead to demands to change our employment model. All the 'flexibility' in zero hours contracts and gig work has been exposed as coming with huge downside risk for employees. But it also makes capitalism vulnerable. Workers without sick pay aren't going to self isolate. It's a lot of lower paid workers whose jobs can't be done from a laptop at home who going to keep things moving. In contrast many of us will reflect that we have bullshit jobs. Nothing is inevitable about a change, but I hope that, once we come out of the other side, unions build on some of the excellent work they have done so far and push for a new employment settlement.
Fifth, surely we're going to change our views on which organisations should and should not be privately owned. I have no idea where the line will end up being drawn but it won't be in the same place it is now.
Finally, the experience of a prolonged health crisis might serve to reset the discussion about pay. We're already seeing medical staff risking, and in some cases losing, their lives to protect us all. They, like most of us, do their job without any expectation of getting any bonus for it. So what makes executive directors so special? If the complex pay model we have for public companies - with all its targets, vesting dates, endless pages of reporting, and wasted investor research and engagement time - is part of a governance model that itself is out of date, let's junk it for good.
PS - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09LTT0xwdfw
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