Asset managers and stakeholders

There's a proliferation of comment pieces from asset managers lately seeking to demonstrate that they "get it" when it comes to lack of trust in business and finance. A lot of these simply re-tread the same ground, with more exhortations to more stewardship and engagement.

As I regularly blog, I think this is too 1990s, and the future of corp gov will have to be more "multi-stakeholder" (hate the term, but you know what I mean). I think the interesting place to be now is figuring out how we get from the largely investor-centred model we have now to something different, and what we take (and junk) from what we have now.

This piece from Standard Life Aberdeen chief executive is possibly a sign that some asset managers are thinking a bit more widely. Although it does end with the usual call for "more stewardship and engagement" the middle of the article sets out views I would struggle to argue with.

Such as:

And:

These are early days, but we're going to see more of this and at some point we will see some meaningful changes. I keep blogging about workers on boards because - not for the first time - mainstream UK corp gov seems to content to ignore what is going on and keep repeating its historical arguments against. This is continuing even as worker directors are starting to be appointed to boards in the UK!

The impact of all this on public policy should be interesting. The last 20 odd years of corporate governance reform have repeatedly sought to use greater shareholder empowerment and corporate disclosure to tackle issues relating to business conduct. But now we have major shareholders stating that building an approach around equity ownership (which does not equal ownership of the company issuing equity) has flaws. That's going to call for something different.