Category: Directorship

METRICAL: Considerations Regarding Retirement of Treasury Stock

2022-08-01 posted by

I am sure you are aware that the number of companies moving to retire treasury stock is gradually increasing due to prime market listing standards. In my previous article, Metrical’s analysis has also revealed that companies that have retired treasury stock three or more times are also more positive in their corporate governance efforts. If share repurchases are a sign that corporate governance initiatives and performance improvement are working in tandem, it is very welcome. I would like to think more about how the actual action taken by the company to retire its own shares relates to corporate governance.

The table below shows the correlation between the frequency of share buybacks and ROE, ROA, and Tobin’s q for the Metrical Universe (as of 1/2022). As shown in the previous article, a highly significant positive correlation between the frequency of share buybacks and ROE and ROA has been confirmed, indicating that the more frequently a company retires its own shares, the higher its ROE and ROA.

This result seems reasonable, because to cancel treasury stock, a company has to buy back its own shares, which has a positive effect on ROE and ROA. On the other hand, the correlation between Tobin’s q and the frequency of share repurchases is not shown to be significant. This means that a company that retires its own shares more frequently does not have a higher stock price valuation, which means that a company that retires its own shares does not have a significant relationship with its stock price valuation. Although the company buys back its own shares before retiring them, this result is also reasonable because the company does not take Tobin’s q (P/B) into account when making its decision to buy back its own shares. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that there is a highly significant positive correlation between the rate of change in market capitalization (12/2021-1/2022) and the frequency of stock repurchases. Even though the frequency of share buybacks is not correlated with respect to stock price premium or discount, it is related to the rate of change in market capitalization over the period 12/2021-1/2022. Over this 13-month period, the more frequent the company’s share retirement (or stock repurchase), the greater the increase in market capitalization. The results show that stock retirement was associated with an increase in market capitalization over this period.

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“Oasis Announces “Women’s Director Training Scholarship” Initiative for International Women’s Day in Cooperation with BDTI of Japan” (Press Release)

2022-03-07 posted by

(Text of the Press Release)

Investment firm Oasis to sponsor board director training courses through The Board Director Training Institute of Japan for all qualified women who enroll in March.

March 8, 2022, TOKYO – In honor of International Women’s Day, Oasis Management Company Ltd. (“Oasis”) and the Board Director Training Institute of Japan (“BDTI”) have announced a new month-long initiative to sponsor board director training courses for women.

Throughout the month of March 2022, Oasis will pay all costs for qualified women who enroll to take any of BDTI’s director training courses as described below. These Japanese and English-language training programs have been designed by leading experts in Japan to prepare candidates to serve as directors or executive officers in Japan.

The goal of the initiative is to equip highly qualified women leaders with the skills and training needed to succeed as board directors, and to proactively address the imbalance in board gender diversity in Japan by expanding the pipeline of board-ready women director candidates.

“Improving gender diversity on boards in Japan by adding qualified female directors is something we are focused on and believe will improve governance and competitiveness at Japanese companies,” Seth Fischer, the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Oasis said. “We strongly encourage all women who are interested to take advantage of this opportunity to access BDTI’s excellent director education programs.”

“Capable, trained female directors bring significant benefits to Japanese boards and companies. We applaud Oasis’s leadership,” Nicholas Benes, BDTI Representative Director, said.

For further information, please contact BDTI at info@bdti.or.jp or 81-3-6432-2337.

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2/7 “Director Boot Camp” Held by Zoom! Next Courses: 4/18!

2022-02-08 posted by

On February 7th, BDTI held its English Director Boot Camp via teleconference. The day-long intensive course was attended by 10 highly-experienced and highly interactive participants. The participants heard lectures about corporate governance by Nicholas Benes along with a guest lecture by Andrew Silberman of AMT, and exchanged experiences and opinions. Even during a pandemic, training continued smoothly, with all participants chiming in with insightful comments and questions.

We are planning to hold the next course on April 18(Mon)2022. Sign up early! Please see a description of our director training course here or click the button below for further information.

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Next Boot Camp is July 13 (Tue.)! Sign Up Now!

2021-06-04 posted by

The next Boot Camp will be on Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Course will be on ZOOM, so anyone in the world can join. Make sure to sign up now! This one-day intensive program teaches participants key legal and corporate governance knowledge they need to responsibly serve on, report to, or analyze boards of Japanese companies, both public and private. The course consists of short lectures interspersed with time for interactive discussion and Q&A about real-life situations that occur on boards, and how to handle them. The course is usually good fun for everybody, since we learn from each others’ experiences, as well as from BDTI. The course covers topics such as:

  • Intro to corporate governance; the role of directors and the board
  • What is legally required of directors under the Company Law?
  • Important corporate law and securities law topics
  • Legal and liability issues, and how to handle them
  • Director duties and conflict-of-interest situations
  • Statutory auditors, internal control, and the audit process
  • The role of the board in strategy and risk management
  • Best practices, committees, and succession planning
  • Japan’s new corporate governance code
  • Changing “corporate governance culture” in organizations
  • The global wave of ESG investing
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