From Mr Guillaume Prache Sir, The misguided condemnation of shareholder value by Mr Martin Wolf («Opportunist shareholders must embrace commitment», August 26) is based on a profound misunderstanding of what creating shareholder value is about. The financial crisis has understandably motivated decision makers and stakeholders to find out what caused it. Amongst others, the concept of
European public pension schemes are under great strain as a consequence of a greying population and the financial crisis. In order to address this problem, governments are looking into promoting supplementary forms of retirement income. Many issues arise from this that need to be addressed by European policy makers whose legislative decisions directly affect the
EuroFinuse comments on the issue, "that some asset managers appear to be engaging in dubious – and potentially illegal – in-house trades to protect funds facing heavy redemptions from having to sell assets at fire-sale prices". Internal cross-trading between funds however, is not illegal. Guillaume Prache, Managing Director of EuroFinuse states in the Financial Times that
The last AGM of Solocal Group is another example of this new trend of shareholders using their powers to demonstrate their opposition against decisions and policies adopted by the company they have invested in. On the 13th of June SolocalEnsemble gathered shareholders disappointed with the restructuring plan proposed by the managing board elected in September
Yesterday’s General Assembly of Volkswagen AG delivered the expected results, despite heated discussion. This also applied to the resolution introduced by DSW for an independent special audit. DSW president Ulrich Hocker stated that, although they expected that the resolution would not obtain a majority vote, DSW remains convinced that an independent special audit should be
Members of the European Parliament are set to vote on a highly critical review of the performance of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation (IFRS). The Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) approved a draft of the report at a sitting on 27 April. The motion will now go forward to a plenary sitting
Active funds in Europe focused on Dutch equities have the worst record for underperforming their benchmarks, with 100% of them seeing losses against their reference indices over a five-year period. 97% of active equity funds focusing on Dutch equities failed to beat their benchmarks over ten years, and 93% failed over three years. For the
The underrepresentation of women is common in senior positions at financial firms small and large alike. This might come from the legacy of what has not only been a male dominated society, but it probably also reflects an industry that is particularly resistant to change. Moreover, there are so few women in senior positions in
Based on the famous Agatha Christie scenario, this tale takes place in Brussels at the heart of the Financial Institutions instead of the Orient Express. The story stems from a European regulatory initiative to neutralize the banks ‘at risk’ during a financial crisis and avoid a repeat of 2008. In 2014, during Michel Barnier’s (European
A recent study by S&P Dow Jones Indices once again illustrates that active managers have trouble beating the indexes, especially over the long term. There seems to be no end in sight to the debate between advocates of active investing and those promoting a passive strategy, with the former defending their ability to deviate from