It’s been an interesting day for those of us on the Left with an interest in issues of governance and ownership. At Labour conference it has been announced that a future Labour government would both mandate that workers form a third of the board o…Read more…
Ryanair AGM in charts…
Just a bit of fun, but I’ve put together a few bits and pieces that put the vote on David Bonderman’s re-election of chair of Ryanair in context.
To calculate the stats I’ve used the full AGM results distributed by the company, and stripped out Bonder…Read more…
Ryanair: Airline Getting Battered
Yesterday was Ryanair’s AGM, which I attended on behalf of the ITF. The two major stories ahead of the meeting – sizeable investor unrest focused on the board, and labour relations – have merged into one, with a particular focus on chairman David Bonde…Read more…
Ryanair AGM
As most people will be aware, Ryanair has its AGM this week, and there is quite a bit of interest in what might happen, particularly in relation to the chairman.
These things are impossible to call in advance. The only thing we really know is the base…Read more…
Unions call for Ryanair chairman to go
ITF and ETF call for new Ryanair chairmanThe International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) are calling for shareholders to oppose the re-election of Ryanair chairman David Bonderman and overhaul the …Read more…
Conflicts of interest, alignment etc
Three sort of related thoughts that I have had recently, when thinking more about competing interests within the firm etc.
1. If there were really no tension between different interests (i.e. managers, workers, investors) then it should not matter who …Read more…
Cut and paste hedge fund reporting, again
Back from holidays, so had a quick Google to see if I could find any of that pro forma stewardship reporting that I had been tracking. And, yes, there is more:
Altavista Capital:
Altavista Investment Management UK LLP manages or advises a number of f…Read more…
A bit more Chantal Mouffe
The excerpt below is from For A Left Populism. I found the book a bit underwhelming to be honest, but the idea of approaching politics as a radicalisation of democracy appeals to me. I’m particularly interested in how this would play out in corp gov / …Read more…
Severn Trent dividends
Another day, another attack on a utility company for putting its investors first….
Press release – Embargoed until 00:01 Thursday July 26, 2018
SEVERN TRENT SHAREHOLDERS MAKE £1.1 BILLION AS BILLIONS OF LITRES WASTED, GMB REVEALS
Dividends and inter…Read more…
Where’s Ryanair’s annual report?
UPDATE: it’s out.
In recent history, Ryanair has usually published its annual report a day or two after releasing its Q1 figures.
In 2017, the day after:
In 2016, the day after:
In 2015, 3 days after:
In 2014, the day after:
In 201…Read more…
Hedge funds and Sky
I thought I’d have another quick look at hedge fund activity around the bidding war for Sky PLC. This looks like it could be quite a profitable trade (especially after several got burnt on Qualcomm / NXP).
As before, some old favourites are in the lis…Read more…
Elias Canetti, centrist hegemony etc
I really like this (as quoted in this):
No-one has ever really believed that the majority decision is necessarily the wiser one because it has received the greater number of votes. It is will against will as in war. Each is convinced that right and rea…Read more…
F**k business
Before his latest piece of self-promotion, Boris Johnson had been in the news for making an interesting remark – “Fuck business” – in a conversation about the attitudes of corporates towards Brexit. Though it’s a few weeks back now, it seems this remar…Read more…
Shareholder primacy and utilities
A theme I think anyone with an interest in corporate governance should keep an eye on is the way that the interests of investors in a firm in relation to others are portrayed in financial media and elsewhere.
Under the 1990s model it was common to see…Read more…
Short stuff
Like everyone does, I spent a bit of my spare time yesterday having a quick trawl through the FCA’s list of disclosed short positions. Quite often these fishing trips end up leaving me empty handed, but this time I stumbled on something interesting.
Investors and labour – gaps, biases, conflicts
I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations this week about how a lot of investors (even those with some ESG credentials) actually view workers. So this is a bit of a splurge of thoughts.
A first over-arching point is that is seems like quite a few…Read more…
Ryanair: just a bit of fun
I dug the stats out of the Ryanair annual reports when it used to disclose the split between direct hire and agency flight crew. The first graph has the real data, the second includes projected numbers for 2012-2017 if the direct hires stayed at the sa…Read more…
Ryanair & employment-related disclosures
As a lot of people in my world know, there are a number of initiatives underway to try to improve disclosure by companies of information related to employment practices. This is in response to blow-ups at a number of companies that have had controversi…Read more…
"Open vs Closed"
If it’s not obvious, let me be clear that I really hate the suggestion that the “real” divide in politics these days is “open” v “closed”. In purely linguistic terms it is such an obviously loaded division – doors that are “closed” are bad, a business …Read more…
Politico commentary
This (from this) is pretty good on the commentariat:
“[J]ournalists weren’t consciously deciding the equilibrium. The journalists were writing ‘serious’ articles, i.e. articles about Alice and Bob rather than Carol. The equilibrium consisted of the jou…Read more…