Results for: goldman
Goldman insists on board diversity for IPO candidates
What’s the news from Davos? Well, the new Goldman Sachs CEO made some news when he told CNBC that, starting July 1, in the U.S. and Europe, Goldman will take companies public only if there is “at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women…. And we’re going to move towards 2021 requesting two.” He continued that, recently, there have been about 60 companies in the U.S. and Europe that have gone public with all white, male boards. However, over the last four years, “the performance of public offerings of U.S. companies with at least one female director is ‘significantly better’ than those without.” [Emphasis added.] While he recognized that the decision could cause Goldman to lose some business, “in the long run,” he said, “this I think is the best advice for companies that want to drive premium returns for their shareholders over time.” Will other investment banks follow suit?
New report looks at board gender diversity in California
With the passage of SB 826 in 2018, California became the first state to mandate board gender diversity (see this PubCo post). The California Partners Project, which was founded by California’s current First Lady, has just released a new progress report on women’s representation on boards of California public companies, tracking the changes in gender diversity on California boards since enactment of the law. According to the report, “[r]esearch has shown us that companies with women on the board of directors outperform those without them. Women directors are more effective at managing risk, better able to balance long-term priorities, and have a keen sense of what customers, shareholders, and employees need to thrive.” The report observes that, if “all of the companies in the Russell 3000 followed California’s lead, over 3,500 women’s voices would be added to corporate governance.”
SEC Chair testifies before Senate Banking Committee—firmly denies paternity of all public companies!
On Tuesday last week, SEC Chair Gary Gensler gave testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. His formal testimony covered a number of topics on the SEC’s agenda that Gensler (and others) have addressed numerous times in past: market structure and equity markets, predictive analytics, crypto, issuer disclosure, China, SPACs and Rule 10b5-1 plans. (See, e.g., this PubCo post and this PubCo post.) While the formal testimony covered some well-trod territory, the questioning highlighted the political polarization that we are likely to see continue as these proposals are presented for consideration.
The sorry state of C-suite diversity
A lot of worthwhile energy in the last few years has been concentrated on increasing diversity in corporate leadership—especially board gender diversity— but how much progress is being made at the level of the C-suite? This paper from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business addresses the sorry state of the C-suite as a whole when it comes to diversity of any kind. According to the paper, notwithstanding numerous efforts launched by asset managers, institutional investors and companies to increase diversity in board and senior leadership, these efforts “have not contributed to tangible progress in increasing the prevalence of diverse executives in corporate leadership positions.” Why have these efforts not been more successful? The paper looks at C-suite (CEO and direct reports) demographics to get a better handle on the “actual pipeline, as it stands today, for next year’s newly appointed CEOs and future board members.”
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