Gouvernance normes de droit Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
5 mythes sur la gouvernance d’entreprise – 1re partie
Ivan Tchotourian 26 janvier 2017
« 5 mythes sur la gouvernance d’entreprise (1re partie) » est mon dernier de blogue sur Contact. À cette occasion, je repense certains facteurs économiques fondamentaux de la gouvernance d’entreprise. Ces facteurs s’appuient sur une série de présupposés issus des sciences économiques, financières, de la gestion et juridiques. Ces présupposés sont ancrés dans une culture anglo-américaine, mais ils ont largement été véhiculés dans le monde. Ils relèvent à mon sens d’une mythologie qu’il est temps de dénoncer.
Voici les 5 présupposés autour desquels s’articule cette mythologie:
1. La société par actions est un simple contrat.
2. Les actionnaires sont les propriétaires de la société par actions.
3. Les actionnaires sont les seuls créanciers résiduels.
4. Les actionnaires dotés de nouveaux pouvoirs s’investissent activement et positivement dans la gouvernance.
5. L’objectif de la gouvernance d’entreprise est de satisfaire l’intérêt des actionnaires.
Je reviens sur chacun de ces présupposés pour démontrer qu’ils appartiennent à une mythologie qui ne saurait justifier une remise en question du mouvement grandissant de responsabilisation des entreprises.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
normes de droit Nouvelles diverses objectifs de l'entreprise Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
Primauté actionnariale et Benefit corporation
Ivan Tchotourian 9 janvier 2017
Le Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation propose un bel article sous la plume de Frederick Alexander : « Moving Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Can Mammoth Corporations Like ExxonMobil Benefit Everyone? ». Une belle occasion de revenir sur le thème de la Benefit Corporation et de la remise en cause de la primauté actionnariale dont elle peut être la cause…
The New York Times recently took issue with Rex Tillerson, the President-elect’s nominee for Secretary of State, and the current CEO of ExxonMobil. Why? “Tillerson Put Company’s Needs Over U.S. Interests,” accused the front page headline. The article details how the company puts shareholders’ interests before the interests of the United States and of impoverished citizens of countries around the world.
In response, a company spokesman insisted that all laws were followed, and that “‘[a]bsent a law prohibiting something, we evaluate it on a business case basis.’” As one oil business journalist puts it in the article: “‘They are really all about business and doing what is best for shareholders.’” Thus, as long as a decision improves return to shareholders, its effect on citizens, workers, communities or the environment just doesn’t rank.
Unfortunately, this idea—evaluate the “business” case, without regard to collateral damage, permeates the global capital system. Corporations are fueled by financial capital, which ultimately comes from our bank accounts, pension plans, insurance premiums and mutual funds, and from foundations and endowments created for public benefit—in other words, our money. And yet when that capital is invested in companies that ignore societal and environmental costs, we all suffer: Corporations use our savings to drive climate change, increase political instability, and risk our future in myriad ways.
The good news is that structures like “benefit corporations” can help us repair our broken system of capital allocation—but the clock is ticking.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
Gouvernance Nouvelles diverses Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
Court-termisme : les propositions de The Aspen Institute
Ivan Tchotourian 2 janvier 2017
The Aspen Institute (par l’intermédiaire de The American Prosperity Project Working Group) vient de publier un rapport proposant de contrer le court-termisme qui gangrène les entreprises américaines. Dans « The American Prosperity Project: Policy Framework », le groupe de travail propose 3 pistes de solutions qui sont les suivantes :
- Focus government investment on recognized drivers of long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness—namely, infrastructure, basic science research, private R&D, and skills training—in order to close the decades-long investment shortfall in America’s future. Building this foundation will support good jobs and new business formation, support workers affected by globalization and technology, and better position America to address the national debt through long-term economic growth.
- Unlock business investment by modernizing our corporate tax system to achieve one that is simpler, fair to businesses across the spectrum of size and industry, and supportive of both productivity growth and job creation. Changes to the corporate tax system could reduce the federal corporate statutory tax rate (at 35%, the highest in the world), broaden the base of corporate tax payers, bring off-shore capital back to the US, and reward long-term investment, and help provide revenues to assure that America’s long-term goals can be met.
- Align public policy and corporate governance protocols to facilitate companies’ and investors’ focus on long-term investment. Complex layers of market pressures, governance regulations, and business norms encourage short-term thinking in business and finance. The goal is a better environment for long-term investing by business leaders and investors, and to provide better outcomes for society.
Pour une synthèse de ce rapport de travail, vous pourrez lire cet excellent article d’Alana Semuels dans The Atlantic « How to Stop Short-Term Thinking at America’s Companies » (30 décembre 2016).
There was a time, half a century ago, when what was good for many American corporations tended to also be good for America. Companies invested in their workers and new technologies, and as a result, they prospered and their employees did too.
Now, a growing group of business leaders is worried that companies are too concerned with short-term profits, focused only on making money for shareholders. As a result, they’re not investing in their workers, in research, or in technology—short-term costs that would reduce profits temporarily. And this, the business leaders say, may be creating long-term problems for the nation.
“Too many CEOs play the quarterly game and manage their businesses accordingly,” Paul Polman, the CEO of the British-Dutch conglomerate Unilever, told me. “But many of the world’s challenges can not be addressed with a quarterly mindset.”
Polman is one of a group of CEOs and business leaders that have signed onto the American Prosperity Project, an initiative spearheaded by the Aspen Institute, to encourage companies and the nation to engage in more long-term thinking. The group, which includes CEOs such as Chip Bergh of Levi Strauss and Ian Read of Pfizer, board directors such as Janet Hill of Wendy’s and Stanley Bergman of Henry Schein, Inc., and labor leaders such as Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO, have issued a report encouraging the government to make it easier for companies to think in the long-term by investing in infrastructure and changing both the tax code and corporate governance laws.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
devoirs des administrateurs Gouvernance mission et composition du conseil d'administration objectifs de l'entreprise Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
Les actionnaires ne sont pas les propriétaires de l’entreprise !
Ivan Tchotourian 13 novembre 2016
L’Afrique du Sud l’affirme et l’assume : la primauté actionnariale doit être remise en cause et la gouvernance d’entreprise doit s’ouvrir aux parties prenantes. Dans son dernier rapport de novembre 2016 (King IV Report on Corporate Governance), l’institut des administrateurs de sociétés sud-africaines ne dit pas autre chose !
Vous pourrez lire l’intéressante synthèse suivante : « King: Shareholders not owners of companies » (10 novembre 2016, Fin24 city press).
Shareholders are not the owners of a company – they are just one of the stakeholders, Prof Mervyn King said on Thursday at the 15th BEN-Africa Conference, which took place in Stellenbosch.
« I realised long ago that the primacy of shareholders could not be the basis in the rainbow nation, » said King. The corporate governance theory of shareholder primacy holds that shareholder interests should have first priority relative to all other corporate stakeholders.
He said when he started with his report on corporate governance the issue was that the majority of SA’s citizens were not in the mainstream of the economy. His guidelines on corporate governance, therefore, had to be for people who had never been in that mainstream of society.
The King Reports on Corporate Governance are regarded as ground-breaking guidelines for the governance structures and operation of companies in SA. The first was issued in 1994, the second in 2002, the third in 2009 and the fourth revision was released last week.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
engagement et activisme actionnarial Gouvernance objectifs de l'entreprise
Des actionnaires de plus en plus actifs : un exemple
Ivan Tchotourian 7 novembre 2016
Intéressant article dans The Sydney Morning Herald sous la plume de Mme Vanessa Desloires intitué : « BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street are not passive on corporate governance ». Cet article illustre l’activisme croissant (et la lente disparition de la prétendue passivité des actionnaires) des actionnaires d’aujourd’hui. Il faut dire que ces derniers (devenus des investisseurs institutionnels) sont de plus en plus puissants autant financièrement qu’économiquement !
Investment behemoths BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street now hold the « balance of power » in corporate governance disputes. And they’re no longer content to be the silent giants in the background, forcing company boards to balance the long-term view of passive fund managers with the short-termism of active managers.
The underperformance of the majority of Australian active managers over the past few years, coupled with the low cost of passive funds, has driven investors into products such as exchange-traded funds en masse, with total funds under management topping $23 billion this year.
As such, the three biggest providers of passive funds, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, have a growing presence on company registers.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
devoirs des administrateurs Gouvernance Nouvelles diverses objectifs de l'entreprise Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
Retour sur le devoir fiduciaire : une excuse pour maximiser le retour des actionnaires ?
Ivan Tchotourian 24 octobre 2016
Intéressant ce que relaie le Time. Il y a un des candidats à l’élection présidentielle américaine a invoqué le devoir fiduciaire pour justifier les politiques d’évitement fiscales qu’il a mises en œuvre pendant de nombreuses années : « Donald Trump’s ‘Fiduciary Duty’ Excuse on Taxes Is Just Plain Wrong ». Qu’en penser ? Pour la journaliste Rana Foroohar, la réponse est claire : « The Donald and his surrogates say he has a legal responsibility to minimize tax payments for his shareholders. It’s not a good excuse ».
It’s hard to know what to say to the New York Times’ revelation that Donald Trump lost so much money running various casino and hotel businesses into the ground in the mid-1990s ($916 million to be exact) that he could have avoided paying taxes for a full 18 years as a result (which may account for why he hasn’t voluntarily released his returns—they would make him look like a failure).
But predictably, Trump did have a response – fiduciary duty made me do it. So, how does the excuse stack up? Does Donald Trump, or any taxpayer, have a “fiduciary duty,” or legal responsibility, to maximize his income or minimize his payments on his personal taxes? In a word, no. “His argument is legal nonsense,” says Cornell University corporate and business law professor Lynn Stout,
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
Nouvelles diverses Structures juridiques Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale
L’entreprise a-t-elle une âme ?
Ivan Tchotourian 24 octobre 2016
Bonjour à toutes et à tous, c’est avec cette question que Michael Dorff (« Can a Corporation Have a Soul? ») ouvre un beau débat dans The Atlantic ? Merci à Mme Louise Champoux-Paillé d’avoir diffusé l’information sur cet article sur LinkedIn…
In light of recent corporate scandals such as Wells Fargo’s, one can be excused for wondering whether corporations seek anything beyond profits for their shareholders by any means necessary. In these days of activist hedge funds pressing companies for ever more share buybacks, is there room for a company that cares about its workers, the environment, or the communities in which it does business? In other words, can a company have a soul?
Mark Fields, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, believes so. In an interview with Fortune, he called Ford “a company with a soul,” pointing to a long-held policy of donating money and employees’ volunteer hours to the communities in which the company operates and to the company’s high rankings for good corporate behavior by an organization called the Ethisphere Institute. Fields quoted the company’s founder, Henry Ford, as saying, “A business that earns nothing but money is a poor business.”
Et la conclusion :
In the absence of any radical new regulations, for American-style capitalism to work again for the middle class as well as for the wealthy, more CEOs like Fields are going to have to adopt ambitious plans for implementing Henry Ford’s advice, plans that stretch far beyond making some charitable donations and implementing sustainability initiatives. They are going to have to give their companies true souls.
À la prochaine…
Ivan Tchotourian
