By: Alan Petrillo | Monday, January 18th, 2010
Last week, I asked the Social Investment Forum listserv to recommend organizations who are working to help the people of Haiti. I was heartened by the response. Links to donate to these groups are listed below.
I also spoke with RiskMetrics analyst Yasmine Lonon, who helped research a study of developing-nation disaster risk for the World Bank’s Disaster Management Facility. In response to a question from our colleague Jane Meacham, who noted that there’s almost no private insurance in Haiti, Yasmine explained how a lack of insurance hinders disaster preparedness:
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By: Alan Petrillo | Friday, October 9th, 2009
On October 2, The Motley Fool surveyed the proposed Shareholder Bill of Rights Act. For the benefit of the site’s audience of retail investors, Alex Dumortier wrote “Let’s Reform Say-on-Pay,” a helpful primer on the Act’s requirement that firms submit their executive compensation practices to a non-binding proxy vote.
Say on pay (SOP) has gained public attention through a sustained effort by some institutional investors. Major companies – including, recently, Microsoft – have accepted SOP provisions championed by Walden Asset Management and Calvert, among other firms and investor groups. These shareholders’ efforts have helped convince the Obama Administration and key Congressional leaders to include say on pay in their reform proposals.
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By: Alan Petrillo | Friday, August 28th, 2009
Bruce Bartlett of Forbes recently wrote a defense of both John Maynard Keynes’ economic theories, and the federal government’s $787 billion Keynesian stimulus package. The title was surely meant to raise eyebrows among Forbes readers, but Peter Kinder, in forwarding the story, said that Bartlett’s is “a judgment I agree with.”
Does it matter what political label we “really” affix to an economist? Or vice-versa? Disciples of Milton Friedman were upset when, in the 1970’s, Richard Nixon declared himself a “Keynesian,” but should these name games mean anything to the rest of us?
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By: Peter Kinder | Thursday, June 11th, 2009
The Madoff Madness and the Banking Crisis: At one extreme, trustees must dodge sociopathic fraudsters; on the other, they must avoid the hubris of “the smartest guys in the room.”
Modern Portfolio Theory and the legal thinking it’s influenced address the problem by means of risk analysis and diversification. This approach has limits, as Investments & Pensions Europe reported recently: “Dutch pension funds have lost €166m to the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff, Wouter Bos, the Dutch finance minister has claimed.”
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By: Alan Petrillo | Friday, May 8th, 2009
As noted by Robert Kropp at Social Funds, 2009 is witnessing a dramatic increase in “say on pay” shareholder resolutions. He gives some credit for this to “public outrage” over executive compensation levels during a worldwide recession. Shareholder engagement is also driven by sustainable and socially responsible investment (SRI) advocates, who help investors work together to achieve common goals.
Green America (formerly Co-op America) recently launched a “proxy education center” for shareholders. With support from Ceres, the AFL-CIO, and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, the site offers guidance on proposed resolutions in four topic areas at 23 major companies.
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By: Alan Petrillo | Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
The Social Investment Forum has posted a list of thoughtful answers to the “Top 10 Questions about SRI.” I especially like SIF’s responses to some skeptical questions about our industry, such as:
Is the performance of SRI funds competitive with mainstream funds and with their benchmarks?
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By: Alan Petrillo | Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Last week, the KLD Blog considered efforts by both shareholders and the Obama Administration to curb executive pay. Investors such as Walden Asset Management have actively sought management support for non-binding advisory votes on executive compensation.
For a closer look at investors’ thinking on “say on pay,” Walden Executive Vice President Tim Smith has shared the text of his February 5 letter to “Colleagues in the Business Community.”
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By: Alan Petrillo | Friday, February 6th, 2009
This week, many national headlines describe an issue that has long engaged the social investment community. President Obama has announced new limits on the pay of bank executives “just days before” another round of Federal investment in banks, reports the New York Times. His announcement follows news of Merrill Lynch rushing big bonuses to its executives, even as bailout recipient Bank of America took over the failed brokerage.
In his Feb. 5 comments, the President said that “what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
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By: Alan Petrillo | Thursday, January 29th, 2009
In his first week in office, President Obama proposed major overhauls of environmental and financial regulations. These changes have long been championed by investors concerned with companies’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, and few were surprised that a new regime has brought a new policy agenda.
In this time of recession and scandal, however, some familiar faces in American business – including former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt and Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott – are also setting a different tone. Mr. Pitt has announced ten lessons that investors should learn from the current crisis, while Mr. Scott has committed the world’s largest retailer to “a sustainability program to remake the entire company.” These are welcome moves, but ESG investors should ask whether this new attitude will outlast today’s crisis mentality.
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By: Gary Moore | Monday, January 26th, 2009
[Note from the Editor: Gary Moore was a senior vice president of Paine Webber before founding his own firm as “counsel to ethical and spiritual investors.” He has written five books on the ethical management of money and has been a financial commentator for UPI. He has very graciously permitted us to post his perspective on the Madoff case. Also see a link to his organization at the end of this article. The following is Mr. Moore’s work. – AP]
Bernie Madoff has apparently perpetrated a fifty billion dollar Ponzi scheme that has devastated investor confidence, as well as several charities in Palm Beach. A hedge fund operator in my hometown of Sarasota has apparently perpetrated another swindle of three hundred and fifty million dollars. It too has affected hundreds, as well as the Y on whose board I serve, and several other charities. The more things change…
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