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Bonjour à tous et à toutes, le Business Roundtable (association privée regroupant les plus importants président de la haute-direction) vient de publier son dernier guide des principes de gouvernance d’entreprise. Intitulé « Business Roundtable’s Principles of Corporate Governance », ce guide

The latest edition of the Business Roundtable’s Principles of Corporate Governance makes one particular principle much more fundamental than it was in the previous edition of the guide.

That principle is diversity, a hot topic in the association world. In a key section of the report, the Roundtable emphasizes that a board should encompass in its members a variety of diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Les principes mis de l’avant sont les suivants :

1. The board approves corporate strategies that are intended to build sustainable long-term value; selects a chief executive officer (CEO); oversees the CEO and senior management in operating the company’s business, including allocating capital for long-term growth and assessing and managing risks; and sets the “tone at the top” for ethical conduct.
2. Management develops and implements corporate strategy and operates the company’s business under the board’s oversight, with the goal of producing sustainable long-term value creation.
3. Management, under the oversight of the board and its audit committee, produces Financial statements that fairly present the company’s financial condition and results of operations and makes the timely disclosures investors need to assess the financial and business soundness and risks of the company.
4. The audit committee of the board retains and manages the relationship with the outside auditor, oversees the company’s annual financial statement audit and internal controls over Financial reporting, and oversees the company’s risk management and compliance programs.
5. The nominating/corporate governance committee of the board plays a leadership role in shaping the corporate governance of the company, strives to build an engaged and diverse board whose composition is appropriate in light of the company’s needs and strategy, and actively conducts succession planning for the board.
6. The compensation committee of the board develops an executive compensation philosophy, adopts and oversees the implementation of compensation policies that fit within its philosophy, designs compensation packages for the CEO and senior management to incentivize the creation of long-term value, and develops meaningful goals for performance-based compensation that support the company’s longterm value creation strategy.
7. The board and management should engage with long-term shareholders on issues and concerns that are of widespread interest to them and that affect the company’s long-term value creation. Shareholders that engage with the board and management in a manner that may affect corporate decisionmaking or strategies are encouraged to disclose appropriate identifying information and to assume some accountability for the long-term interests of the company and its shareholders as a whole. As part of this responsibility, shareholders should recognize that the board must continually weigh both short-term and long-term uses of capital when determining how to allocate it in a way that is most beneficial to shareholders and to building long-term value.
8. In making decisions, the board may consider the interests of all of the company’s constituencies, including stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers and the community in which the company does business, when doing so contributes in a direct and meaningful way to building long-term value creation.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

« Petit » billet proposé par Findley Davies revenant sur les sujets chauds en matière de rémunération des hauts dirigeants : « Hot Topics in Executive Compensation » (par Brad Smith).

Voici un extrait :

Areas of Interest :

a. Evergreen renewals of executive compensation agreements

b. Golden parachute excise tax gross ups

c. Guaranteed bonuses/equity grants

d. « Excessive » severance or perquisites

e. « Liberal » change of control definitions and/or payouts

f. Single trigger vesting of equity grants

g. Reconciliation of non-GAAP performance measures to GAAP

• Trends in executive compensation design

Observations :

a. Mandatory holding periods after vesting are growing in popularity for accounting purposes.

b. A portfolio approach (more than one vehicle) is becoming the norm for delivery of long term incentive compensation.

c. Total Shareholder Return is becoming a more popular performance metric.

d. Clawbacks are becoming more of a standard practice in executive compensation in light of upcoming Dodd-Frank regulations.

e. Use of stock options is becoming less common because of accounting issues and advisory firms’ stance that they are not pay for performance.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Spencer Stuart vient de publier son étude 2016 sur les CA : « 2016 Global Board of Directors Survey ». Qu’en retenir ?

• Political and Economic Landscape: Uncertainty dominates boardroom Outlook
• Political and Economic Landscape: Economy, regulations and cybersecurity top issues for directors
• Company Risks: Women directors report higher concerns about risk than male directors
• Strategy: Top challenges differ for public and private companies
• Boardroom Grades: Directors consider boards weaker in people-related processes
• Board Turnover: Directors—especially women—favor tools to trigger change
• Board Diversity: Greater independence doesn’t always drive greater diversity
• Boardroom Diversity: Quotas not supported overall
• Boardroom Diversity: Search firms have been successful in expanding the talent pool of qualified female directors

Le Harvard Law School Forum résume comme suit cette étude :

Corporate boards face no shortage of challenges—from economic uncertainty to strategic and competitive shifts to a dynamic set of risks. Investor attention to board performance and governance has also escalated, and many boards are holding themselves to higher standards. Directors want to ensure that their boards contribute at the highest level, incorporating diverse perspectives, aligning with shareholder interests and setting a positive tone at the top for the organization.

Yet our research has revealed a gap between best practice and reality, especially in areas such as board diversity, HR/talent management, CEO succession planning and director evaluations. But the study provides hope that boards will make progress, as directors support practices that can help promote change. Future research is needed to track progress on these fronts and to study the impact of measures such as quotas and diversity on board performance.

Amid the many challenges confronting corporations—and the growing expectations on corporate boards—directors must be thoughtful about defining the skill sets needed around the board table and diligent in recruiting the right directors, planning for CEO succession and evaluating their own performance. In this way, they will be best positioned to contribute at the high levels which they are demanding of themselves, and to which others are holding them accountable

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Intéressant éclairage apporté par Paula Loop sur LinkedIn à propos de la notion d’engagement qui est devenu une notion incontournable de droit de la gouvernance d’entreprise : « Shareholder engagement: What does success look like? ».

Petit extrait :

Shareholder engagement is a hot topic these days and one that is frequently debated in the C-suite and boardroom. Traditionally, executives put a lot of emphasis on the role of Investor Relations in the engagement process, only rolling up their sleeves and getting involved if there was an issue or an event that called for additional effort.

Calls for more frequent director communication

But now we’re hearing investors say that they would like to hear from key executives—and even directors—on a more regular basis. Depending on the facts and circumstances, investors might like to hear from the company annually, or in some cases, more often. For some executives and directors, this is a new paradigm

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Le cabinet Davies propose une excellente synthèse du projet de loi visant à réformer le droit fédéral des sociétés par actions ici.

Le 28 septembre 2016, le gouvernement fédéral a déposé au Parlement le projet de loi C-25 qui vise à apporter des modifications importantes à la Loi canadienne sur les sociétés par actions (la « LCSA ») (les « modifications proposées »). Si les modifications proposées sont adoptées, les émetteurs assujettis (ainsi que les autres sociétés ayant fait appel au public et les sociétés visées par règlement, au sens de la LCSA) devront se soumettre à de nouvelles obligations inspirées des meilleures pratiques actuelles en matière de gouvernance, notamment les suivantes :

• élection à la véritable majorité des voix exprimées : obligation pour les actionnaires de voter « pour » ou « contre » l’élection de chaque candidat à un poste d’administrateur (élimination de la possibilité de voter en bloc pour une liste de candidats proposés) et interdiction pour les candidats qui n’ont pas été élus à la majorité des voix exprimées d’occuper un poste d’administrateur, sauf dans les
  « circonstances prévues par règlement » ;
• élections annuelles des administrateurs : obligation pour les sociétés de tenir chaque année une élection pour combler tous les postes au sein de leur conseil d’administration, éliminant ainsi la possibilité de procéder au renouvellement du conseil d’administration par tranches ; et
• présentation de renseignements relatifs à la diversité : obligation pour les sociétés de présenter aux actionnaires des renseignements relatifs à la diversité au sein des administrateurs et au sein des membres de la haute direction à chaque assemblée générale annuelle.

Je vous invite à lire la synthèse de Davies pour en savoir plus !

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian