Corporate governance - Vigil

The public support by large corporations for socially progressive ideologies, both in politics and business, has created a crisis of legitimacy for corporate America. By embracing the “woke” revolution that is politicizing nearly every area of Americans’ lives, corporate America has severely damaged its credibility with the rest of the country, and broken its relationship with conservatives and the Republican Party. This collapse of trust not only harms the health of our public life; it prevents large corporations from effectively serving the patriotic and necessary roles we need them to in order to advance the common good. It is time to change course.

Despite a short dip at the outset of the pandemic, activism has rebounded and now continues at an ever-growing intensity. As we have previously noted, regardless of industry, size or performance, no company should consider itself immune from activism. No company is too large, too popular, too new or too successful. Even companies that are respected industry leaders and have outperformed the market and their peers have been and are being attacked. And companies that have faced one activist may be approached, in the same year or in successive years, by other activists or re-visited by the prior activist.

Chinese Estates Holdings, a major shareholder of embattled developer China Evergrande, said on Wednesday it had proposed to be taken private by Solar Bright Ltd for HK$1.91-billion ($245.30-million).

Following the completion of the proposed deal, the entire stake in the company will be held by British Virgin Islands-based Solar Bright and its Century Frontier and JLLH Investments subsidiaries.

‘Many of the claims don’t make any sense,’ CEO says, in his first public comments related to renewed debate over Facebook’s role in society

Ozy Media is being sued by one of its investors for fraud after a whirlwind week in which the digital media company announced both that it was shutting down and then opening back up.

Box CEO Aaron Levie is ready to move on after the end of an intense standoff with activist investors.

Macy's on Tuesday announced the appointment of Michaels CEO Ashley Buchanan and Zipcar President Tracey Zhen to its board of directors.

Global airlines have committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, an ambitious challenge for the heavily polluting industry as it begins to recover from the crisis caused by Covid-19.

The target was agreed by members of the International Air Transport Association on Monday, and came as the industry faced growing pressure to take new action to cut its emissions.

Qualcomm Inc. is teaming with an investment firm to further its autonomous-driving ambitions, snatching Swedish auto-technology company Veoneer Inc. from a competing bidder in a $4.5 billion takeover.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) recently issued two critical Consent Orders, First American Title [2] and Pearson, [3] both articulating the need for timely, fulsome, and accurate disclosures to the market when a data breach occurs. These two Consent Orders are the first precedents that offer guidance on what the SEC is expecting on cybersecurity risk related to what the board needs to know, when they need to know it and when they need to disclose it.

As investors’ calls for greater climate-related corporate accountability grow louder, the “E” in ESG—environmental, social and governance—looms larger than ever, particularly from the perspective of directors facing oversight responsibilities and the challenge of providing adequate disclosure. That reality became even clearer when a little-known hedge fund with a relatively small stake in ExxonMobil successfully elected three insurgent directors at the company’s annual meeting after quietly garnering the support of other stakeholders by appealing to their interest in environmental and governance issues.

Imposter syndrome occurs when people don’t believe they deserve respect or rewards for their accomplishments. They live in fear that their accomplishments have been a fluke and they will be found out and exposed as a fraud.

In short, they don’t feel they are being their authentic selves, and they don’t believe they’re worthy of being the person others see them as. Imposter syndrome can become a terrible burden carried by even the most successful of people, and it’s not always easy to overcome.

The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that headline consumer price inflation should peak this fall and recede to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022, but risks remain that shortage-driven inflation spikes could prove more persistent, unanchoring expectations.

Each year CAP analyzes non-employee director compensation programs among the 100 largest US public companies. These companies are trendsetters and can provide early insights into evolving pay practices across the broader public company marketplace. This post reflects a summary of pay levels and pay practice trends based on 2021 proxy disclosures.

IT IS NEARLY half a century since the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo on America, turning a modest inflation problem into a protracted bout of soaring prices and economic misery. But the stagflation of the 1970s is back on economists’ minds today, as they confront strengthening inflation and disappointing economic activity. The voices warning of unsettling echoes with the past are influential ones, including Larry Summers and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Mohamed El-Erian of Cambridge University and previously of PIMCO, a bond-fund manager.

Carl Icahn disclosed an almost 5% stake in Southwest Gas, and derided the utility's nearly $2 billion deal to buy Questar Pipeline, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.
The billionaire investor and Icahn Enterprises boss revealed his position after Reuters reported on Monday that Southwest was close to purchasing Questar from Dominion Energy. Despite Icahn's opposition, the two energy companies have announced the transaction will go ahead.

Despite a short dip at the outset of the pandemic, activism has rebounded and now continues at an ever-growing intensity. As we have previously noted, regardless of industry, size or performance, no company should consider itself immune from activism. No company is too large, too popular, too new or too successful. Even companies that are respected industry leaders and have outperformed the market and their peers have been and are being attacked. And companies that have faced one activist may be approached, in the same year or in successive years, by other activists or re-visited by the prior activist.

As the world’s largest companies and their CEOs increasingly embrace a new leadership role in advancing racial equity, they face a confounding question: What really works?

Despite decades of research and a growing corporate focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over the past few years, many executives are unsure what actions are most effective at increasing diverse representation, improving feelings of inclusion, or making progress on other DEI goals.

Hertz Corp has named former Ford Motor Co chief executive Mark Fields as its interim CEO, the rental car company said on Tuesday.

Fields succeeded Alan Mulally as president and CEO of the No. 2 U.S. automaker in 2014. He was ousted in 2017 and replaced by Jim Hackett.

Just how reliable are those carbon footprints that many large companies have been publishing in their sustainability reports? Even putting aside concerns about greenwashing, what about those nebulous Scope 3 GHG emissions?

It’s a challenging time for IT leaders helping build businesses back better, with some of their biggest challenges being finding the workers, skills, and budget to deal with the workload.

That, at least, is what IDG Research found in its just-published study of CIO Technology Priorities. The study, conducted in May 2021, asked IT leaders in a range of industries about the challenges they faced and how their investment priorities have shifted as they prepare for what we now see as the new normal.