Companies should give CEOs share units less often and stop paying them with stock options to motivate better long-term performance and minimize the role of luck in compensation payouts, a new report argues. The Quebec-based Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations has proposed revamping the model for executive pay in Canada, saying companies […]

The typical Canadian CEO makes $8 million a year, 140 times the average private-sector salary, according to new research by the Montreal-based Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP). In the banking sector, that ratio is even higher, with the median CEO compensation at $10.5 million. Things, though, weren’t always so. In 1998, […]

Pershing Square, an activist hedge fund owned and managed by William Ackman, began hostile maneuvers against the board of CP Rail in September 2011 and ended its association with CP in August 2016, having netted a profit of $2.6 billion for his fund. This Canadian saga, in many ways, an archetype of what hedge fund […]

Presentation made in October 2017,  by Eric C. Schneider, Senior Vice President for Policy and Research of the Commonwealth Fund, for the Conference on the governance of the healthcare system, organised by the Institut for Governance (IGOPP).

Winston Peters’ swingeing attack on Fonterra boss Theo Spierings’ $8.3 million pay packet could be the first real salvo in his self-advertised campaign to ‘clean up corporate New Zealand’. There was little attention given to Peters’ campaign against alleged business “fat cats” while he was slugging it out on the election trail. But given the […]

Yvan Allaire has a great analysis of Dow Jones’ overreaction to Snapchat’s IPO and the dual class stock phenomenon in general: ”In July 2017, Dow Jones, goaded by the reaction to Snapchat having gone public with a class of shares without voting rights, announced that, after extensive consultation, it had decided to henceforth eliminate companies […]

In July 2017, Dow Jones, goaded by the reaction to Snapchat having gone public with a class of shares without voting rights, announced that, after extensive consultation, it had decided to henceforth eliminate companies with dual-class shares from its indices, in particular the S&P 500 Index. Over the last 10 years, putting money in passive […]

The United Kingdom is stiffening the rules large companies must follow in an effort to rein in executive pay and bolster the input of ordinary employees in the running of their firms. On Tuesday, the government outlined a series of changes. Large publicly-traded companies will have to report annually the ratio of CEO pay to […]

In July of this year, Dow-Jones, goaded by the reaction to Snapchat having gone public with a class of shares without voting rights, announced that, after extensive consultation, it had decided to henceforth eliminate dual-class companies from its indices, in particular the S&P 500 Index. Over the last ten years, putting money in passive index funds has become […]

Corporate America started the year ready to engage with a controversial but business-minded president. This week CEOs have risen in chorus to denounce Trump’s lackluster response to racism. Not since the 1930s, when prominent business heads publicly broke with Franklin Roosevelt, has a US president seen such a revolt by leading business executives. [ … […]

There’s been a substantial turnover of university leaders recently in Quebec, and finding replacements has sometimes proven difficult. No fewer than nine university institutions in Quebec have seen their executive head depart since 2015. Several of the rectors – the term used for university presidents in Quebec – left their posts after a single mandate […]

For a few months there, 2016’s political earthquakes seemed to signal a power shift away from the 1%. What started with the Brexit vote escalated when Donald Trump won the White House. Now, as we barrel toward an apocalypse incited by ill-advised presidential tweets, all that anti-elite anger has somehow been forgotten—and with it, any […]

After some 15 years of tweaking and polishing the theory and practice of “good” governance, perfectly independent board members remain surprise-prone, estranged from the goings-on in the company, partially informed and lacking the wherewithal to challenge management. No doubt that the legitimacy and credibility of boards have suffered as a result. In the current age, […]

The debacles of Enron, Worldcom and others in 2001-2002 were imputed in good part to the “flexibility” of accounting norms and the artistry in their interpretation. As a result, regulators, governmental and professional, greatly tightened the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to which all publicly traded companies must rigorously adhere. Any breach of the GAAP […]

In the wake of several high-profile takeovers of Quebec companies, such as Rona Inc. and Cirque du Soleil, the provincial government is implementing new measures aimed at promoting the growth of local businesses while maintaining corporate head offices in the province. Premier Philippe Couillard’s government said Tuesday it would set up a watchdog group to […]

There is a Chinese proverb that says He who knows he has enough is rich; but the modern Western version of the saying seems to be: One never has enough; I deserve more; or There is always someone who has more. Over the last years, we have built a system of incentives and motives so […]