投資者與公司治理

Does corporate governance matter? Or, to be more precise, do investors really care about it? This is a question that I have been pondering for two reasons. First, huge amounts of passive investment has made questions about corporate decision making irrelevant for many investors. When you are just tracking the index, you are not looking at what a company is really doing on the ground and whether its leaders are making the right calls. You are simply passing the buck to the market.

公司治理重要嗎?或者說得更準確些，投資者真的關心公司治理嗎?我之所以思考這個問題是出于兩個原因。第一，被動投資的龐大規(guī)模提出了企業(yè)決策與很多投資者無關的問題。當你只是追蹤指數(shù)時，你不是在看一家公司到底在做什么，或是公司領導層是否做出了正確的決定。你只是把責任推給市場罷了。

But there is another, less explored, way in which investors may be passing the buck. Institutional investors have come to own roughly two-thirds of all the outstanding shares in US corporations. That gives them tremendous power over executives and their decisions. Yet a large chunk of that power is outsourced to proxy advisers like Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, which give investors advice on how to vote on everything from management to corporate pay packages. While it is understandable that large asset managers like BlackRock or Fidelity and myriad smaller institutions would want to offload this task, the result is that individual corporate decisions sometimes get short shrift.

但是或許還有另一種投資者推卸責任的方式，鮮有人探究。機構投資者持有美國企業(yè)已發(fā)行股票總量的約三分之二。這使得機構投資者對企業(yè)管理層及其決策擁有巨大權力。不過，其中大量權力都被外包給了機構股東服務機構(ISS)和Glass Lewis等代理顧問——它們就如何在從管理層到企業(yè)薪酬計劃的各種問題上進行投票為投資者提供建議。盡管貝萊德(BlackRock)或富達(Fidelity)等大型資產(chǎn)管理公司以及無數(shù)的小型機構希望擺脫這項任務是可以理解的，但結果就是有時某些企業(yè)決策無人理會。

Companies, trade and lobbying groups (the Conference Board and the Business Roundtable, for example), as well as some academics and corporate governance experts, have begun complaining that proxy advisers are incentivising the wrong behaviour — focusing not on the nuances of corporate governance, but rather creating rigid checklists that must be followed lest the proxy adviser vote no on issues like pay or board membership.

企業(yè)、行業(yè)和游說團體(例如世界大型企業(yè)聯(lián)合會(Conference Board)和商業(yè)圓桌會議(Business Roundtable))、以及一些學術和公司治理專家，已經(jīng)開始抱怨代理顧問在鼓勵錯誤行為——不關注公司治理的微妙之處，而是把重點放在制造必須遵守的死板清單，以免代理顧問在薪酬或董事會成員等問題上投票否決。

The issue is not new: more than a decade ago, ISS opposed the re-election of Warren Buffett to the board of Coke, as some of his holdings — such as Dairy Queen, which serves Coke products — triggered a conflict of interest provision. It is tough to argue that Mr Buffett was not a worthy director; he said the decision was “absolutely silly . . . checklists are no substitute for thinking”. But shifts towards “say on pay” (shareholder votes on executive compensation) have attracted investor scrutiny, as has a long-run bull market in which it is tougher to achieve the returns investors crave.

該問題并不新鮮：十多年前，ISS反對再次選舉沃倫•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)擔任可口可樂(Coke)董事，因為他持股的其他一些公司——比如提供可樂產(chǎn)品的Dairy Queen——觸發(fā)了利益沖突條款。很難說巴菲特不是一個有價值的董事;他稱該決定“絕對愚蠢……清單不能替代思考”。但是投資者的態(tài)度轉向了獲得“薪酬話語權”(股東對高管薪酬進行投票)，這種轉變導致投資者加強審視，就像長期牛市——使得投資者更難以實現(xiàn)所期望的回報率——也會讓投資者更謹慎一樣。

These factors have conspired to create new proxy pressure for companies. Since total shareholder return is the key metric of corporate performance for proxy advisers, companies that are doing anything that fails to raise the share price year on year — regardless of whether it is smart or not — may find themselves opposed by investors.

這些因素共同造成了企業(yè)面臨的來自代理顧問的新壓力。由于股東總回報(TSR)是代理顧問考慮公司業(yè)績的關鍵指標，如果企業(yè)所做的事——無論是否明智——未能實現(xiàn)股價同比上漲，就可能遭到投資者的反對。

Consider the recent saga of Credit Suisse. Over the past couple of years, the company has been trying to orchestrate a turnround, settling a big fine over dicey (pre-financial crisis) mortgage-backed-security deals with the Department of Justice, offloading bad assets and restructuring the business. None of this is good for share price in the short term, but it was necessary. No surprise, then, that the Credit Suisse management team was disappointed when proxy advisers opposed its corporate pay plan, citing 2016 losses, despite the fact that the top brass took a 40 per cent cut in its own compensation as part of the turnround effort. “It was just totally demotivating for staff and management,” says one insider. “We could have left these decisions for someone else to worry about later and there would have been no issue over pay.”

想一想瑞信(Credit Suisse)最近的經(jīng)歷。過去兩年，瑞信一直在試圖扭轉局面——與美國司法部(US Department of Justice)就其(金融危機前)的高風險抵押貸款支持證券(MBS)交易達成巨額罰款和解協(xié)議，處置不良資產(chǎn)并進行業(yè)務重組。這些做法短期內(nèi)對提升股價沒有幫助，但都是必不可少的措施。后來，不出意料，當代理顧問反對企業(yè)薪酬計劃時，瑞信管理團隊十分失望，代理顧問反對的理由是2016年虧損，盡管最高管理層為了瑞信走出困境，把自己的薪酬下調(diào)了40%。“這完全是在挫傷員工和管理層的積極性，”一位內(nèi)部人士表示，“我們本可以把這些決定留給別人以后去操心，那就不會存在關于薪酬的問題了。”

ISS stands by its recommendation, and adds that it does take into account other performance metrics, like return on invested assets, revenue growth, and so on. But TSR is “what investors want to see,” says Patrick McGurn, special counsel at ISS, and therefore determines a yes-or-no vote on pay. “We’ve talked to our clients about using non-financial performance to judge pay, but they want something quantifiable. You can’t just have some vague judgment about it.”

ISS堅持己見，并補充稱其確實也考慮其他業(yè)績指標，比如投資資產(chǎn)的回報率、營收增長等等。但ISS的特別顧問帕特里克•麥古恩(Patrick McGurn)表示，股東總回報是“投資者希望看到的”，因此決定了其對薪酬計劃投票支持還是反對。“我們已經(jīng)跟客戶談過利用非財務績效來審視薪酬計劃了，但他們想要可量化的標準。你不能只是給出含糊的判斷。”

Maybe so. But as an increasing body of research shows, share price does not always correlate with good long-term decision making; a Stanford study showed that firms lauded by proxy advisers did not actually have better returns, fewer lawsuits, or higher valuations over time. Jacking up the stock price of a company is as easy as a stock buyback, proven by the record number made over the past two years as companies struggle to get a bit more juice out of what may well be the end of a bull market. Unfortunately, that money does not go into things like research and development or training, or other types of real business investment to create value.

或許確實是這樣。但越來越多的研究表明，股價并不總是與良好的長期決策有關;斯坦福大學(Stanford University)的研究表明，得到代理顧問贊賞的公司實際上并不一定回報更高、法律糾紛更少、或估值隨時間增長。大幅提升股價通過股票回購這樣的簡單操作就可以實現(xiàn)，正如過去兩年企業(yè)面對很可能終結的牛市力圖進一步提升股價時創(chuàng)紀錄的股票回購操作所證明的那樣。不幸的是，這些資金并未投入研發(fā)、培訓或其他類型的實業(yè)投資來創(chuàng)造價值。

In the US, there is now a push to realign incentives. A House proposal last year suggested forcing proxy advisers to register with the SEC and disclose any conflicts of interests — which could be substantial, given that they are paid by asset managers. Other proposals include giving companies more time to respond to proxy reports and make their case about individual management decisions. Yet the criticism of proxy advisers is “really part of a larger philosophical debate about who companies are being run for”, says Douglas Chia, head of corporate governance at the Conference Board. Boards and management? Shareholders? Or some larger group of stakeholders? Whatever the answer, it is worth thinking about the kind of corporate governance our system is incentivising.

美國如今正在推動企業(yè)重新調(diào)整激勵措施。去年眾議院一項提案建議，強制代理顧問在美國證交會(SEC)注冊并披露所有的利益沖突——鑒于代理顧問是由資產(chǎn)管理公司支付酬勞，沖突可能相當可觀。其他建議包括，給企業(yè)更多時間來回應代理報告并闡明單個管理決策的理由。但對代理顧問的批評“實際上是關于企業(yè)為誰經(jīng)營的更大哲學爭論的一部分，”世界大型企業(yè)聯(lián)合會公司治理負責人道格拉斯•介(Douglas Chia)表示。是為了董事會和管理層?股東?還是更大的利益攸關方?無論答案是什么，我們都必須思考我們的制度鼓勵什么樣的公司治理。