normes de marché

Le Harvard Business Review propose un article intitulé : « How incentives for long-term management backfire” qui prend le contrepied de la croyance voulant que les plans incitatifs basés sur la performance à long terme seraient une cause du court-termisme de la direction des entreprises.

In the five years since the advent of Dodd-Frank regulation, corporate governance groups, with their policies requiring at least half of long-term incentives to be “performance-based,” have pushed companies to replace options with multi-year, performance plans. How could anyone object to such an effort? Hardly anyone, except here is the rub: Performance plans require performance targets, and in most companies, planning works in three-year cycles. The logical performance period for long-term incentives is one that matches those cycles. Three years has thus become the standard performance window for measuring achievement.

So a three-year horizon — not even a presidential term — has inexorably become the norm for investing hundreds of billions of dollars of money aimed at creating “long term” value. With the best of intentions, many proxy advisors and long-term investors have widely blessed three years as appropriate, adopting three-year pay for performance as their standard comparison. Today, four out of five S&P 500 companies use a three-year performance period in their long-term incentives. But executives today, who are paid on this new “long term,” typically with equity based partly on earnings-per-share performance, naturally think twice about retaining earnings for projects beyond three years. Their measurements conflict with their managerial inclinations, encouraging them to use earnings booked today to immediately return cash to shareholders.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, l’UNEP vient de publier un très intéressant rapport sur les liens entre droits de l’homme et finance durable (ici).

UNEP’s Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System has partnered with the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) to produce a report examining the relationship between finance and human rights. It concludes that a sustainable future for all requires a coherent vision of how the layers of society, economy, environment, and finance interact, and the role of the financial system in facilitating sustainable livelihoods and societies.

Morceau choisi pour le côté « régulation » :

There is far greater scope for directing finance through policy and regulatory interventions to avoid harm to human rights at a minimum, and to maximize the potential in fulfilling human rights. The Paper identifies a number of opportunities to build on. Perhaps the most important starting point is sparking an interest with regulators to even consider the topic of human rights. There are a few nascent signs: the impact of the financial crisis and growing inequality has sparked, if not ignited, an interest among some regulators in considering the need for inclusive capitalism where human rights can play an important role in framing considerations around inequality. The growing attention to unwanted environmental and social externalities of current modes of production and the social tensions this can cause is beginning to register with financial supervision authorities. Regulators are worried about the identified need to rebuild trust in the sector, where financial leaders take values as seriously as valuation. In other words, the conversation has begun but further work is needed: (…)

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Ivan Tchotourian

Le World Economic Forum vient de publier son dernier rapport « Global Risks Report » qui appelle à ce que les critères ESG soient davantage intégrés dans le domaine financier. Ce rapport constate que les investisseurs sont souvent peu mis au fait de l’importance des menaces et que la gestion des risques de régulation et du climat dans les décision de court-terme et dans les données financières est indispensable pour que les investissements intègrent le risque climatique.

The Global Risks Report 2016 features perspectives from nearly 750 experts on the perceived impact and likelihood of 29 prevalent global risks over a 10-year timeframe. The risks are divided into five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological.

The report also examines the interconnections among the risks, and through that analysis explores three areas where global risks have the greatest potential to impact society. These are the concept of the “(dis)empowered citizen”, the impact of climate change on food security, and the potential of pandemics to threaten social cohesion.

The report also takes an in-depth look at the how the global security landscape could evolve in the future; sharing the outcomes of a year-long study to examine current trends and possible driving forces for the future of international security.

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Ivan Tchotourian

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, Mme Élisabeth Forget nous offre un article intéressant à la Revue des sociétés : « L’investissement éthique : Implications en droit des sociétés » (2015 p. 559).

Forme d’investissement de plus en plus pratiquée par les investisseurs particuliers aussi bien qu’institutionnels, l’investissement éthique offre d’infinies possibilités. Confessionnel, environnemental, ou encore humaniste, l’investissement éthique se veut le plus souvent durable et responsable. En cela, il épouse les objectifs de la RSE. Porteurs de ces valeurs, les investisseurs éthiques participent activement à la vie des sociétés dont ils détiennent des titres. Leur engagement se fait au service de l’intérêt de toutes les parties prenantes à la vie des sociétés. En cela, l’investissement éthique rebat les cartes des théories juridiques relatives à l’intérêt social et contribue à faire pénétrer en droit français la Stakeholder Theory

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Ivan Tchotourian