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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

Excellent dossier de La presse consacré à la gouvernance d’entreprise publié ce 3 mai ! Plusieurs articles sont ainsi consacré à la gouvernance d’entreprise et notamment un que je retiens dans le cadre du blogue : « Six enjeux de la gouvernance d’entreprise ».

L’activisme des actionnaires d’entreprises cotées en Bourse fait maintenant partie du paysage. Dénote-t-il des besoins de réformes majeures ? Va-t-il amener des changements de comportement chez l’élite des sociétés ? Survol des principaux enjeux en gouvernance d’entreprise.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Le quotidien Le Monde vient de publier un article de Mme Stéphanie Goujon (« Il faut « favoriser la diffusion du retour social sur investissement auprès des entreprises comme des associations » ») qui revient sur l’importance d’évaluer la création de valeur sociétale et l’utilité de développer un nouvel indicateur pertinent, moderne et juste : le retour social sur investissement (Social Return on Investment, SROI). L’auteure y aborde le dernier rapport de France Stratégie sur le lien entre RSE et performance d’entreprise.

• Pour accéder au rapport de France Stratégie : « Responsabilité sociale des entreprises et compétitivité : Évaluation et approche stratégique » (janvier 2016).

Les entreprises peinent véritablement à calculer le retour sur investissement des actions RSE – le fameux ROI (« return on investment »), Graal de toute entreprise. L’absence de liaison directe entre RSE et ROI de la responsabilité sociale, sociétale et environnementale conduit même certaines entreprises à penser que leur démarche RSE n’a aucun impact sur leurs performances économiques et financières… Pourtant une récente étude de France Stratégie montre qu’il existe un écart de performance économique de 13 % au bénéfice des entreprises ayant adopté une démarche RSE.

Rapport sur la gouvernance des sociétés fermées par le NACD (pour une synthèse, cliquez ici) !

The National Association of Corporate Directors recently released its 2015-2016 NACD Private Company Governance Survey. In an article in the March 2016 edition of “Private Company Director” – a monthly publication sponsored by NACD – senior research analyst, Ted Sikora, highlighted a few of the results. Some of the more interesting take-aways were those that distinguished family owned business from other privately held companies. For example:

• Approximately three-quarters of all family owned business lack any kind of formal CEO/leadership succession plan. At the same time, respondents to the survey from family owned businesses identified leadership and management training as some of the most important and time consuming parts of their job (more so than other privately held companies). This interesting juxtaposition might arise from the fact that many family owned businesses (although certainly not all) already have a presumptive leadership heir. As such, there does not appear to be any need for a formal process for identifying a new CEO. Because the next generation of leadership is frequently already with the business, however, there is a constant reminder of the training they need
• Barely half of family owned businesses have any kind of board evaluation mechanism. Again, it is not difficult to imagine the relationship dynamics in a family business that would lead to this result. If everyone on the board of directors is in the family, a formal review process would seem particularly awkward.
• A majority of family owned businesses have no limitations or restrictions on time spent in management or on the board. Many privately held companies will have term limits, age limits and other restrictions, but these appear notably less used in family owned businesses.
• Respondents from family owned businesses strongly identified the need for outside, industry expertise on their boards. Yet family owned businesses are the most likely to have boards lacking in outsiders, industry experts and others identified as adding value.
• Consistent with nearly every other survey in this area, family owned businesses demonstrated a longer vision and a greater priority of long-term planning, as compared with their non-family owned counterparts.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian