Tag: Shareholder Value

Verantwortungseigentum
Tops vs. Flops

Karl Marx, Michael Otto and the “ownership of responsibility

The initiative for a new legal form meets with resistance – because of an unfortunate choice of name and biting reflexes. At its core, it is about optimal conditions for good corporate governance. If Karl Marx had still experienced this: Capital is struggling to be allowed to expropriate itself. Because the “GmbH in Verantwortungseigentum”, which wants to establish an entrepreneurial and expert initiative as a new legal form, is supposed …

Read More
Thomas Rabe
Tops vs. Flops

Thomas Rabe & Kasper Rorsted: Does the new Adidas tandem harmonize?

Following the appointment of Thomas Rabe as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, different philosophies collide in Herzogenaurach. This holds potential for conflict – and the chance to learn from each other. One of the most exciting personalities this summer was the election of Thomas Rabe (55) as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Adidas: As planned, the Bertelsmann CEO replaced 76-year-old Igor Landau in August, who had previously served as …

Read More
Börse
Tops vs. Flops

Top vs. flop: Saori Dubourg, Donald Trump and the stock market

In the corona crisis, the stock markets have moved far away from reality – especially in the USA. This underlines the fact that prices and indices are poor indicators for assessing economies and companies. Can we change this?   If the future is traded on the stock exchange, the Corona pandemic will soon be over. During the week, the major indices almost returned to pre-crisis levels – even in the …

Read More
Hasso Plattner
Tops vs. Flops

Top vs. Flop: Hasso Plattner & Jennifer Morgan

What is more important – rapid growth or customer satisfaction? The SAP Supervisory Board in the Walldorf “Clash of Cultures” gave a convincing answer. What some dismissed as a “settling of accounts” with former CEO Bill McDermott was much more: In an interview with Handelsblatt last week, SAP founder Hasso Plattner gave deep insights into the company’s culture – and at the same time revealed the real reason for Jennifer …

Read More
Tops vs. Flops

Top vs. flop: Günther Fielmann and Kasper Rorsted

For Kasper Rorsted, another difficult week comes to an end. A few days ago, the Adidas boss had to announce poor figures for the first quarter – and get shareholders in the mood for even worse results in the current quarter. There is no doubt about it: Hardly any other manager has come under such public scrutiny during the Corona crisis. After Adidas announced that it was suspending rent payments …

Read More
Highlights
DEHNEN.s Corner

What disappointed me in 2019 – and what gives hope for 2020

Dear readers of GermanBoardNews, the pre-Christmas stress is an unmistakable sign that the year is coming to an end. And “between the years” there is often time to review the past twelve months. What went well? What goals have we achieved? What disappointments and highlights have we experienced? From the perspective of an arguer for better, future-oriented corporate governance, I must say that the major breakthrough has not been achieved …

Read More
ThyssenKrupp
Tops vs. Flops

ThyssenKrupp: How Cevian dupes the Krupp Foundation

The beginning of the end of the industry icon ThyssenKrupp as we know it was not the serious management mistakes, for example in Brazil. Good board members and supervisory board members could have made up for that. In our opinion, the beginning of the end was the entry of the financial investor Cevian in 2013, which was acclaimed by the stock market, as this left too little time to get …

Read More
Börse
Tops vs. Flops

Olaf Berlien & Mathias Döpfner: Expulsion from Paradise

More and more companies are fleeing the stock market. According to the Handelsblatt, the number of regularly listed companies has fallen from 761 to 464 in the last ten years. And the trend is accelerating; Axel Springer and Osram recently announced a withdrawal – with similar arguments: The CEOs Olaf Berlien and Mathias Döpfner needed time for the digital transformation and could not use shareholders who would go on the …

Read More
Saori Dubourg
Tops vs. Flops

Saori Dubourg: Initiative against shareholder value excesses

The pressure from investors who are looking for fast money can prevent good corporate governance. A classic example is share buybacks at the expense of future investments. That’s why we’ve been asking ourselves this question for some time: How can the influence of activists and speculators be limited without limiting shareholder rights? To put it bluntly: How do we turn the stock exchange from a playground for gamblers into a …

Read More
ThyssenKrupp
Tops vs. Flops

ThyssenKrupp: Women’s duo determine the fate of the industrial icon

A few days ago, a study hit the headlines according to which men occupy key positions on Germany’s supervisory boards. At least at ThyssenKrupp things are different: there the new committee chairman Martina Merz and Ursula Gather from the major shareholder Krupp Foundation are now in charge. After the turbulences of recent months and in particular the sudden change of strategy, it is now up to two women to decide …

Read More
Aktienrückkäufe
Tops vs. Flops

Bernie Sanders & Elisabeth Warren: The US Governance Rebels

This number must be melted on the tongue: Between 2008 and 2017, the 500 largest US corporations spent four trillion dollars on share buybacks – more than half of their profits. This makes it clear that one-sided shareholder value thinking still dominates overseas – the motto is “shareholders are fuelling instead of investing in the future”. In our opinion, the volume of share buybacks in Germany is also too high, …

Read More