Corporate governance - Vigil

Amazon gave away cars and $100,000 cash bonuses to a handful of vaccinated warehouse workers as part of its running sweepstakes to encourage employees to get inoculated.

Canada’s largest pension funds and banks have limited direct ties to the Evergrande Group debt crisis, a review of their investment holdings shows, but there’s little question the Chinese company’s collapse would have painful knock-on effects, even if those indirect reverberations are difficult to quantify.

China’s central bank said all cryptocurrency-related transactions are illegal, reinforcing the country’s tough stance against digital rivals to government issued money.

Embattled Chinese conglomerate HNA Group said on Friday that its chairman Chen Feng and Chief Executive Adam Tan are suspected of committing crimes and have been detained.

The last 18 months will likely go down as one of the most disruptive—and likely most difficult—periods leaders will face in their careers.

Yet despite all the challenges this year, there are signs of an improving economy. Unemployment numbers are decreasing after a substantial increase earlier this year. Many companies are increasing output. And mergers and acquisitions are bouncing back—perhaps not surprisingly, given the number of companies which have become attractive targets as a result of a challenging operating environment.

In response to the increasing interest in M&A, we wanted to write to CEOs about their role in this, based on advice other CEOs have shared with us after having gone through the process themselves.

Fried (2021) argues that Nasdaq’s proposal will generate substantial risks for investors, as existing research has shown that increasing board diversity can lead to lower share prices. Fried notes that there has been no research on a “diversify or explain” regulation such as that proposed by Nasdaq.

We seek to fill this gap by studying the effects of a “diversify or explain” legislation that has been in place in Canada since 2014.

European gas prices have soared in recent weeks, climbing to a high of $25 per million British thermal units . A number of factors, from Russian supply bottlenecks to a lack of wind in the North Sea, caused the spike. As winter approaches, the countries most dependent on gas—for heating homes and generating electricity—could be feeling the chill.

Inter Pipeline Chief Executive Officer Christian Bayle and Chief Financial Officer Brian Heagy will step down from their posts on Oct. 28, the Canadian energy infrastructure firm said on Wednesday.

While COVID-induced lockdowns initially brought unexpected environmental benefits, nearly two-thirds of executives in Deloitte Global’s 2021 climate survey reported the pandemic and resulting economic downturn caused them to cut back on their organisation’s sustainability efforts. At a moment when sustainability actions need to significantly accelerate, many organisations were forced to take a step back. At the same time efforts were pulled back, over a quarter of executives surveyed indicated their organisations were already feeling the operational impacts of climate change.

Going public is a key decision for many firms. Whether or not going public is good for firms has been called into question by authors and the press who have written that firms after they go public may be myopic as the public markets may cause firms to suboptimally focus on the short-term at the expense of the long term. We raise an alternative perspective and examine whether going public may be optimally be associated with a change in strategy to raise funds for commercialization and also to focus on increasing profitability.

Facebook Inc.’s chief technology officer, a long-serving top lieutenant to co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, said on Wednesday he will step down from the role next year.

Restaurants across the country are struggling with a labour problem as they try to reopen: many of their former employees don’t want their old jobs back.

Thousands of hospitality workers who were stuck at home during pandemic lockdowns have decided to change careers or start their own businesses, leaving behind a restaurant life that, many say, has always been plagued with low pay, difficult working conditions and a lack of long-term stability.

On september 20th the Bank for International Settlements (bis), the central banks’ central bank, released data showing that corporate borrowing around the world remains at an all-time high. A notable case is in China, where there is even more business borrowing as a share of gdp than in Japan at the peak of its bubble-related borrowing spree in the 1990s. But it is high everywhere (see chart). Corporate debt in the rich world stood at 102% of gdp at the end of March, compared with 92% before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. Could high levels of debt threaten the recovery in advanced economies?

A top ABC staffer said Disney executive Peter Rice decided not to conduct an external investigation of how the company handled misconduct claims against a former producer.

Lauren Hobart took the top job at Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. earlier this year, becoming one of a few dozen female CEOs to helm America’s largest companies and the third person to run the family-owned retailer since its start in 1948.

Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s FWD Group Holdings landed a $400 million investment as part of the Asian insurer’s plans for a multibillion-dollar U.S. listing.

In a carefully reasoned decision, the Delaware Supreme Court this week overruled a 15-year precedent that had permitted minority stockholders to pursue classically derivative dilution claims directly against controlling stockholders.

TPG is promoting a group of longtime partners to leadership roles as the private-equity firm prepares to launch an initial public offering of its shares.

China’s vast and opaque financial system has long posed a threat to its economy and the world. The agonies of Evergrande, a property firm with towering debts, are a reminder of how hard it is to manage the risks. The government is attempting to impose an orderly default on some of its creditors but faces the risk of contagion.

One of Canada’s largest and most established private software companies, online learning provider D2L Corp., is set to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in the coming weeks, the latest in a record string of new issues by Canadian information technology enterprises.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. is looking for a new chief executive officer for its Mirror unit as its leader steps down just over a year after the at-home fitness company was acquired.

Brynn Putnam is leaving her role as CEO of Mirror but will continue to work as an adviser to the company through July, according to an internal memo Tuesday obtained by Bloomberg News. Putnam founded Mirror in 2016 and stayed on as CEO after the Vancouver-based company acquired it last year.

On August 30, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced three enforcement actions against registered investment advisers for alleged cybersecurity failures involving cloud-based email systems. All three actions (which were settled) imposed six-figure penalties on the advisers, despite the Staff’s acknowledgement that none of the actions resulted in any unauthorized trades or fund transfers to unauthorized parties for any client accounts and despite the relatively small number of clients involved.

Private equity firms are making highly visible commitments to address the challenge of sustainability. Market-leading firms, such as The Carlyle Group, EQT, and TPG Capital, now produce sustainability reports and have dedicated executives overseeing sustainability initiatives and embedding sustainability throughout the deal cycle. Other firms are even making debt funding contingent on hitting certain ESG targets. [1] This comes in response to pressure from society at large, but also from fund investors—88% of limited partners use ESG performance indicators when making investment decisions, according to recent research by Bain & Company.

Sony Pictures Networks India has proposed a deal to take control of Zee Entertainment, India’s largest listed media company, whose founding family is resisting a rare revolt by foreign shareholders.

If the deal goes ahead, it would create one of India’s biggest media conglomerates, with dozens of channels encompassing Sony’s popular sports networks and Zee’s popular Hindi language news and entertainment channels, in addition to streaming services and film studios.