All the union news that's fit to blog...
I read this recently, which is worth checking out. Here are a few quick chunks that feel very relevant (all from Bauman):
“[T]he mistrust of all and any order, synchronic and diachronic alike; questioning of the idea of ‘order’ as such; the tendency t…Read more…
I like this (from this):
To affirm the perpetuity of contest is not to celebrate a world without points of stabilisation; it is to affirm the reality of perpetual contest, even within an ordered setting, and to identify the affirmative dimensions of co…Read more…
Obviously, I’ve not been blogging much lately, but something I’ve been spending a bit of time looking at is dividend arbitrage. In it its most well-known version, this is the practice of shifting stock around the ex dividend in order minimise tax payab…Read more…
Something I’ve been thinking about a bit lately is how disconnected responsible investment is from the rest of the world. There is a tidal wave of marketing for ESG products and services currently storming through the financial services industry, yet i…Read more…
Over the past few weeks there has been quite a lot of interest in the extent to which UK companies are giving employees a say in corporate governance. As most people will know, the revised UK Corporate Governance Code that came into force this year enc…Read more…
One of of the things I find myself spending time reading and thinking about lately is the interaction between concentration of companies (or oligopoly) within industries, and concentration of ownership of those same companies.
There have been a number…Read more…
I was interested to see a piece in City AM recently from Robert Colvile of the Centre for Policy Studies about Labour’s plans for nationalisation of utilities. I’m interested in this issue as it cuts across politics and ownership, which is, obviously, …Read more…
There have been a few developments over the past week or two that play into the argument I’ve been making that 1990s-style corporate governance is come under serious pressure to change.
1. Polling from the resolutely centrist Progressive Cen…Read more…
A few months back I blogged some initial thoughts about the idea of loyalty. To recap, I find it jarring that various bodies increasingly try and encourage us to be disloyal. While I get that it’s silly to be ‘loyal’ to a utility provider (or insert yo…Read more…
I blogged last year that I thought the position of shareholders relative to other stakeholders was going to come into sharper focus in politics. Here’s a piece from my favourite newspaper this weekend to make the point:
It’s a pretty simple message:…Read more…
Easter is one of those special times of the year when we get to spend time with family members we don’t see often enough… and to be deeply shocked at how differently even close relatives view the world.
I’m a fully paid-up metropolitan lefty Remaine…Read more…
a little snippet from Globalization: The Human Consequences:
Ideally, nothing should be embraced by a consumer firmly, nothing should command a commitment till death do us part, no needs should be seen as fully satisfied, no desires considered ultimate…Read more…
Wisconsin Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin has issued a report calling for workers to elect a third of the board of directors.
The aggregate evidence from comparison countries provides strong support for the theory that worker empowerment can foster seve…Read more…
If there were any doubt the idea of employee representation at board level is gaining momentum in some unusual places, then take a look at this:
Murray believes that, if there had been a meaningful number of people with a stake in Walmart’s longer-term…Read more…
Another issue I am starting to look at in more detail is the overlap between stock-lending, shorting and other activity. I was recently pointed in the direction of some of BlackRock’s literature on stock-lending and it fed my sense that at least parts …Read more…
If anyone were in anyone doubt that the outsourcing sector is in big trouble, Friday saw Interserve’s precarious position finally resolved. The major shareholder – US hedge fund Coltrane Asset Management – voted against the proposed debt-for-equity swa…Read more…
The ongoing battle at Interserve is grimly fascinating. The company’s biggest shareholder is hedge fund Coltrane Asset Management which is trying to scupper the board’s plans for a debt-for-equity swap. This would (obviously) be bad news for existing s…Read more…
I have been blogging a lot recently about employee representation on boards. This is partly because I’m an advocate of it, partly because no-one else seems to be tracking the issue properly and partly because I think the issue is part of a significant …Read more…
A couple of excerpts from How Will Capitalism End that resonates with me. The first has obvious application to Brexit (though this was written before it) though it also describes how I feel sometimes looking at ESG land.
[T]he arenas of distributi…Read more…
I’m still tracking company announcements on if/how they are complying with the UK Corp Gov Code in respect of employee voice.
I’ve found two more choosing to designate an existing NED as employee representative. The first is the recruiter Hays, announ…Read more…