The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) announced the appointment of another independent director, Mark Edward Tucker, effective Nov. 5. But Goldman has much further to go on improving its corporate governance. Mr. Tucker isn’t the ideal candidate. As the CEO of AIA Group Ltd., the insurance company that American International Group Inc. (AIG) spun-off in [...]
Tag Archives | Goldman Sachs
GMI Ratings Governance Issue | The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
November 7, 2012 in Corporate Governance, Daily Viewpoint, Flash Reports
Barclays’ CEO Bob Diamond Resigns
July 3, 2012 in Daily Viewpoint, News and Opinions, Scandals
By Paul Hodgson – CCO and Senior Research Associate Barclays’ CEO Bob Diamond has followed the lead of independent chairman Marcus Agius and announced his resignation today, though according to press reports he has done so under protest and with less altruism than Mr. Agius. Interestingly, Mr. Agius is leading the search for a replacement [...]
GMI Ratings Governance Issue | Global banks
June 26, 2012 in Corporate Governance, Daily Viewpoint, Flash Reports
Moody’s Investors Service downgraded 28 Spanish banks on Monday and 15 global ones last week. Many of these companies’ managers are still struggling to improve their governance, which contributes to doubts about the strength of their businesses. The New York ratings agency cut its long-term debt and deposit ratings on Spanish banks by one to [...]
HSBC’s hold till retirement plan called a badge of ethos
June 13, 2012 in CEO Pay, Daily Viewpoint
By Paul Hodgson – CCO and Senior Research Associate As reported in the Financial Times a few days ago, a group of institutional shareholders including Standard Life are pushing for the spread of a new “hold till retirement” share retention plan that is being contemplated by HSBC. It is said that the lengthy retention clauses [...]
Goldman to Appoint Lead Director to Replace Outgoing Presiding Director
March 28, 2012 in Corporate Governance
It’s like a non-denial denial. And all praise to Rob Cox of Reuters Breakingviews for raising the issue in his blog and coming up with a title that I would be proud of: “Goldman now treats shareholders like muppets”. Perfect. I already raised the issue of separating the chairman and CEO positions in an earlier [...]
On the eleventh day of Enron my comp committee gave to me: 11 CEOs earning over $73 million in realized compensation during fiscal year 2007
January 31, 2012 in CEO Pay
By Scott Patterson – Compensation Analyst Manager While fiscal year 2008 was the year of energy CEOs (see the On the Ninth Day of Enron), top fiscal year 2007 realized pay was slightly more diverse with six of the 11 top earners tied to the financial sector. Earlier we discussed Angelo Mozilo (seeOn the Third [...]
Clawing Back Wall Street Pay
December 21, 2011 in CEO Pay
By Paul Hodgson – CCO and Senior Research Associate It is comforting that the New York City Comptroller is calling for tougher clawbacks to be applied to Wall Street pay. The Press Release gives a great deal of detail about the resolutions that have been filed at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, including the [...]
OWS Protesters Target Big Bank CEOs, Security Perks Put to Use
November 4, 2011 in CEO Pay, Executive Pay, Executive Pay: Banks, Financial Crisis
By Greg Ruel, Research Associate JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO James Dimon received $17k in security costs in 2010. The security figure represented a diminutive portion of his nearly $600k in perks for the year, though he could be looking to beef up security soon after being approached by Occupy Seattle protesters Wednesday afternoon. According [...]
As the U.S. Ramps up Prosecutions for Corporate Bribery Overseas, Investors Should Look for Companies with Effective Risk Management Oversight Programs
August 12, 2011 in Daily Viewpoint
By Nathaniel Parish Flannery, Research Analyst Despite the fact that U.S. regulators are making unprecedented efforts to prosecute companies for engaging in illegal and unethical activities, from a corporate governance perspective, most U.S. companies have been slow to update their mechanisms of risk management oversight. For instance, Deere & Co., the farm equipment manufacturer, recently [...]
My Bnet Posts on CFO Intelligence and Reputational Risk and Other Weekend Reading
April 17, 2011 in Miscellaneous
This week I wrote posts for my Risky Business Bnet column on Why You'd Better Give a Damn 'Bout Your Bad Reputation and Are CFOs Smarter Than CEOs — Or Do They Just Invest That Way? The first has a great interview with Jonathan Low about managing reputational risk. And the second covers recent research [...]
When to Boot A Problem Director
March 30, 2011 in Scandals
My latest column on Bnet asks what took so long for Rajat Gupta's fellow board members to oust him. For two reasons, the public announcement of the insider trading allegations at Galleon should have triggered immediate action from every organization, and especially every public company, with which Gupta had a current or recent past [...]
Time to Focus on the Goldman Board
May 7, 2010 in Boards
Thanks to Dan Gerstein of Forbes for asking the right questions — who is the Goldman Sachs board and what were they thinking? [H]ow does the system ensure these high-paid overseers actually police their even higher-paid patrons? The consensus answer I heard from the corporate governance analysts and former federal prosecutors I polled: It doesn't [...]
A New Director for Goldman Sachs
April 29, 2010 in Boards
Duff McDonald of Fortune reports that Goldman Sachs has announced a new addition to its board of directorsdesigned to respond to the "whiff of moral bankruptcy hanging about the place." Replacing Rajat Gupta, alleged to have passed along insider information to his friend Raj Rajaratnam of The Galleon Group, will be former WalMart head H. [...]
SEC Market Timing The Goldman Sachs Trial?
April 28, 2010 in Executive Pay: Banks
Jeff Cunningham, publisher of Directorship magazine, recently blogged about the investigation into Goldman Sachs. He suggested that the SEC fraud accusation was an example of market timing because it came out on a Friday, a no news day, and the same day that the SEC’s failure in a Ponzi case was catalogued, almost as if [...]
Bill Black and Barry Ritholtz on Goldman Sachs: Rotten to the Core
April 20, 2010 in Daily Viewpoint
And see also Goldman's defense documents and Eleanor Bloxham's thoughtful post in her brand new blog, with a point I have not seen elsewhere: this is not the first time Goldman has been sued by the SEC in a matter related to the information provided to investors. This fact could be important to this case [...]