Chief Executives: Passing the Baton

Patrick Cescau is settling into his new job as the head of Unilever having taken over from Niall Fitzgerald. The transition was smooth: when Mr Fitzgerald took the post he said he would hold it for eight years, and his eight years are up. In February, he said Mr Cescau, a 30-year veteran of the A...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 15, 2004

Director Pay Rising with Responsibility

Total compensation for board members surged between 20 and 35 percent last year. However, this growing largesse has come at the cost of significant increases in responsibility and accountability in light of new corporate governance initiatives such as Sarbanes-Oxley, according to a new survey fro...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 14, 2004

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Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

A Trademark Move

In the late 1990s, business-method patents came into vogue as Internet pioneers staked out intellectual property. Priceline.com patented its “reverse auction” sales method in 1998, for example, and Amazon.com patented its “one-click” ordering system a year later.Now financial-services firms are g...

By Ilan Mochari • Oct. 6, 2004

The SEC Flexes Its New Muscle

Two years after Congress voted to boost its budget, the Securities and Exchange Commission has nearly completed a monumental hiring binge, adding 932 employees between December 2002 and July 2004, which boosted staff to 3,520 after attrition. Now that the agency has beefed up, how will its approa...

By Don Durfee • Oct. 5, 2004

Governance Champs Outperform the Market

Good corporate governance seems to pay. A group of 26 companies that got the highest score from GovernanceMetrics International’s twice yearly corporate governance ratings outperformed the S&P 500 Index.The good-governance group outperformed the S&P 500 in terms of total returns for each ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 10, 2004

Who’s the Boss?

In the old days, back before Sir James Goldsmith and greenmail and merger mania, shareholders were a quiet, unobtrusive lot. They followed the ups and downs of the market, rarely attended annual meetings, and dutifully filed company announcements in the trash. Proxy battles were like volcanoes in...

By John Goff • Sept. 1, 2004

New Chairman at Martha Stewart Living

Thomas Siekman, a lawyer and former executive for Compaq Computer, was named the chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. after Jeffrey Ubben stepped down, according to wire-service reports.Ubben, whose firm ValueAct Capital is the largest investor in the company after Martha Stewart hers...

By Ed Zwirn • July 29, 2004

Double Standards?

With all the talk about governance and accountability, you might assume that all public companies have a majority of independent directors on their boards. Well, not exactly. In fact, a surprising number of companies, including Primedia Inc. and Weight Watchers International Inc., are identifying...

By Kate O'Sullivan • July 8, 2004

More Board Independence, Less Fraud?

The more independent directors on a company’s board, the less likely it is to be accused of fraud, according to a study published in the June issue of Financial Analysts Journal, a publication of the CFA Institute.Three professors — Hatice Uzun of Long Island University, Samuel Szewczyk of Drexel...

By Stephen Taub • June 29, 2004

Calpers Cites Four for Poor Governance

Calpers, the largest U.S. pension fund, placed Royal Dutch/Shell, Walt Disney Co., Emerson Electric Co., and Maytag Corp. on its 2004 “focus list.” Translation: The companies are “both poor economic performers and have corporate governance structures that do not ensure full accountability to comp...

By Stephen Taub • June 11, 2004

Corporate Boards Undergo Shakeup

Even though it’s getting tougher to hire new board members, most corporations are doing it, a new survey suggests.Indeed, 54 percent of the 220 representatives of the large North American businesses participating in the study said their companies have brought in new directors this year. At the sa...

By Stephen Taub • June 9, 2004

Major Investors Back Proxy Access

Institutional investors overwhelmingly support the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rules that would open up the director nomination process, according to a survey by Broadgate Consultants Inc.Nearly 80 percent of the 120 buy-side money managers and research professionals who respond...

By Stephen Taub • June 2, 2004

Qwest Defeats Shareholder Proposals

Shareholder proposals intended to change the structure of the board of directors of Qwest Communications International Inc. were easily defeated at the company’s annual meeting on Tuesday.A measure requiring that board members be independent, without business ties to Qwest, received just 28.8 per...

By Stephen Taub • May 27, 2004

Gillette Dissidents Press Harder

A resolution calling for the annual election of the Gillette Co.’s board of directors received support from 68 percent of the shares voted at Thursday’s annual meeting.The measure, which was led by Christian Brothers Investment Services Inc. and activist investor Walden Asset Management, urged th...

By Stephen Taub • May 21, 2004

Splitting Top Jobs Overrated, Says Study

Companies that split the positions of chairman and chief executive officer perform worse than companies with just one person handling those roles, according to a new study from Booz Allen Hamilton.That is one finding of the consultancy’s survey of CEO turnover at the world’s 2,500 largest publicl...

By Stephen Taub • May 19, 2004

Onetime Enron Director Departs Qualcomm

Qualcomm Inc. announced the resignation of Frank Savage, a former director of Enron Corp., from its board of directors. He had served on the board since 1996.Qualcomm gave no reason for the resignation. In a statement, chairman and CEO Irwin Jacobs said only that “Frank Savage has served Qualcomm...

By Stephen Taub • May 18, 2004

Calpers Targets AT&T, Sears, Ford

Calpers last week said it will withhold votes for directors at nearly 20 companies, including AT&T, Sears, and Ford. Most of the newly named companies are holding their annual meetings this week.At AT&T, as in a majority of the prior cases, Calpers is opposing directors because their audi...

By Stephen Taub • May 10, 2004

The Lunatic You Work For

To the anti-globalisers, the corporation is a devilish instrument of environmental destruction, class oppression and imperial conquest. But is it also pathologically insane? That is the provocative conclusion of an award-winning documentary film, called “The Corporation”, coming soon to a cinema ...

By Economist Staff • May 7, 2004

Calpers Cites Another Baker’s Dozen

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System has singled out directors at another 13 companies from whom it will withhold votes. They include nominees at Gannett, Echostar, 3M, Colgate-Palmolive, and United Parcel Service.As in most previous cases, the nation’s largest pension fund especial...

By Stephen Taub • May 5, 2004

Safeway Adds Independent Directors

Safeway Inc. is the latest company to cave in to shareholder pressure regarding its corporate governance practices.The grocery giant announced that it will name three independent directors to replace George Roberts, James Greene Jr., and Hector Ley Lopez.Roberts and Greene, who have served on the...

By Stephen Taub • May 4, 2004

Making the Grade

Which are the best-governed companies in America? According to GovernanceMetrics International, they include 3M, Intel, McDonald’s, Pfizer, and Target. These heavyweights, along with 13 other, received a score of 10 out of 10 in GMI’s latest report on corporate-governance practices.The study, whi...

By Kate O'Sullivan • May 4, 2004

Three More Companies Split Top Jobs

Seagate Technology has become the latest of a growing number of companies to separate the roles of the chairman and chief executive officer.The maker of hard-disk drives announced that Bill Watkins, currently president and chief operating officer, will take over as CEO and president on July 3, at...

By Stephen Taub • May 3, 2004

Teachers’ Fund Joins Calpers Effort

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (Calstrs) will join the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) and withhold votes from a number of directors up for election, according to Reuters.The proxy-vote positions of the two institutional investors are sure to overlap, sa...

By Stephen Taub • April 29, 2004

Corporate Chiefs Eye Director Issues

In a sign of the recent surge of management sensitivity to corporate-governance issues, Louis Camilleri, chairman of Kraft Foods, told attendees of the company’s annual meeting that Kraft is seriously thinking about boosting the size and independence of its board, according to Reuters.During a qu...

By Stephen Taub • April 28, 2004

Mixed-Gender Mandate for Norway’s Boards

The glass ceiling for women in Scandinavia has turned into a major corporate-governance issue.Norway recently mandated that boards of directors must comprise at least 40 percent of each sex or face legal action, according to Reuters. “There is no slack,” Ansgar Gabrielsen, the country’s industry ...

By Stephen Taub • April 28, 2004