A total of 719 companies listed on the TSE that close books in March, or 31 percent of the total, held shareholder meetings on June 27th, marking the peak day of this year’s season for such gatherings.
Month: June 2019
June 14th “Director Boot Camp” – Another Successful Program! Next Course: September 12th, 2019!
On June 14th, BDTI held its English Director Boot Camp , attended by a number of highly experienced participants. Participants from various companies heard lectures about corporate governance by Nicholas Benes and Andrew Silberman of AMT, and exchanged experiences and opinions at a spacious, comfortable room kindly donated for our use by Cosmo Public Relations, a leading communications and PR firm in Tokyo.
METRICAL: CG Top 20 stocks slightly underperformed in May… and a focus on board chairs
Chair of the Board of Directors
We would like to highlight the function of the chair of the board. Of about 1,800 companies, only 27 companies are chaired by an outside director. This indicates just how resistant inside directors are in entrusting the position of chair of the board to an outside director. The table below shows the 27 companies.
Corporate Governance in Japan: What Has Changed in the Past Three Years?
I recently gave a presentation in which I tried to answer this question. Here are the top-line conclusions:
- Investors are finding their voting voices
- Now they need to find to find their asking voices
- There is a way to tear down the “allegiant shareholder ” wall
- Factors that correlate with superior performance include: >= independent directors, low “allegiant” holdings, >15% female directors, and age of firm <45 years
- Activism is becoming more effective
These conclusions are based on a huge amount of time-series data we have collected. We are now building a comprehensive time-series database that includes not only financial data, but all text and numerical data from financial reports and CG Reports, as well as tabulated AGM voting results for each resolution. The data will be organized so that one can zero in on exactly the data one needs. Here is a simple example showing board practices parameters, historical AGM participation and CEO approval rates, and the trend of ownership of “allegiant shareholdings”:
