engagement et activisme actionnarial | Page 2

Le message a le mérite d’être clair ! Le blog of Manifest, the proxy voting agency se montre pour le moins critique (!) d’une réforme américaine qui vient d’être proposé et qui vise notamment à mettre en place un encadrement des agences de conseil en vote : « Global investors condemn US attempt to undermine their voting decisions »

The US House of Representatives’ Finance Services Committee last week passed a series of  Bills which seek to repeal large chunks of the Dodd-Frank Act which was passed in response to the 2008 financial crash.

The bills would amend the mandate on public companies to provide shareholders with a vote on executive compensation to occur only when the company has made a material change to the executive compensation; repeal the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) authority to issue rules on proxy access and repeal the mandate that publicly-traded companies disclose the ratio of median versus chief executive officer pay.

Part of the package of legislative proposals is the Corporate Governance Reform & Transparency Act of 2016 would, if passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, require mandatory SEC registration for proxy advisory firms such as Manifest wishing to operate in the US.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

En voilà une nouvelle de Reuters (« France may make shareholder votes on executive pay binding -Hollande »), la France s’interroge à faire du say on pay quelque chose de juridiquement dur : du soft hard law !

France may make shareholder votes on executive pay binding if a guideline to follow their recommendations is ignored by company boards, President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday.

A council on corporate governance, comprising executives from big firms and representatives of the Medef employers association, is reviewing a decision last month by Renault’s board to defy shareholder rejection of the chief executive’s 7.2 million euro ($8.15 million) payout for 2015.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, The Globe and mail propose un article de Janet McFarland intitulé :  “Shareholders get more savvy when it comes to say-on-pay votes”. Intéressant dans cette période d’assemblée annuelle…

Early voting results from annual meetings this year make it clear that shareholders are growing far more sophisticated in their analysis of compensation programs, and are more willing to vote “no” over concerns about fundamental pay design issues, even when there is no overwhelming controversy about a single major payment. (…)

Shareholders have said for years that they want compensation programs that clearly link pay to superior longterm performance, so it’s a logical next step for investors to move beyond simply reacting to one-off scandals to more intensively examine the features of pay design. Such scrutiny has the potential to greatly accelerate reform across Corporate Canada as companies watch the voting trends.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Selon un article de La presse du 27 avril 2016 (ici), l’Office d’investissement du régime de pensions du Canada (OIRPC) et le Régime de retraite des enseignants de l’Ontario (Teachers) ont exprimé à Bombardier leurs préoccupations à l’égard des « octrois accordés aux dirigeants en sus du programme habituel de rémunération ».

Les temps changent. Longtemps ignorée, la question climatique s’invite dans les assemblées générales de compagnies pétrolières. Alors que Shell et BP sont sous la pression de la coalition  Aiming for A , laquelle rassemble de grands investisseurs soucieux d’investir dans des entreprises engagées dans la lutte contre le réchauffement planétaire, ExxonMobil et Chevron vont devoir soumettre à leurs actionnaires une résolution sur les risques financiers liés au dérèglement climatique.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian