Category Archives: Retirement savings

02.12.19
by

Businesses’ social purpose is as a part of an interdependent society, not as exploiters of it

From Davos to the Australian financial sector, businesses and investors are having conversations ‘regaining the community’s trust’ and ‘social licence to operate’ in a manner that suggests business exists in a parallel universe to society.

That somehow a ‘social purpose’ gives companies an entry ticket to exploit communities for their commercial gain, and that this approach is acceptable.

Here’s a thought, when businesses recognise they are part of an interdependent society, then they would realise they already have a ‘social purpose’. A few actually.

  1. Businesses provide useful goods and services to customers and in return they get paid for these goods and services. Without customers the business doesn’t exist, so that is quite a good reason to look after your customers.
  2. Businesses provide jobs for people and in return those people provide skills, experience and commitment to help a business thrive. Without employees they don’t exist, so that is quite a good reason not to screw your employees over.
  3. Businesses pay (or should pay) tax based on their earnings to the government of the jurisdiction and in return they get access to decent infrastructure (power, water, telecommunications, roads etc) and educated people who can get medical help when they are sick (and healthy people are better for the economy). They may also get government agency support in establishing export pathways overseas, they may benefit from the research paid for by taxpayers at universities in developing their product and they may receive subsidies to develop those products. These are very good reasons to pay your taxes and contribute to the society in which you operate.
  4. Businesses need a supply chain to operate. Without suppliers it is difficult for businesses to operate in our highly specialised world. For example, it does not make economic sense for every business to make its own paper, have a power plant to generate its own electricity or maintain a team of tradespeople to fix the air-conditioning, do the plumbing and the like. So that is a good reason to have a good relationship with suppliers and have reasonable payment terms.
  5. Businesses may also contribute to their communities through:
    1. supporting education institutions and in return they help create their future employees and product lines;
    2. Support local sporting and other community clubs and in return that may generate custom and goodwill, which means revenue;
    3. They may invest in developing employees in remote and regional destinations where they work and in return they also get a cheaper workforce that doesn’t need to be flown in, are likely to stick in the job longer and they contribute to a stronger and economically stable community; and/or
    4. Not pollute the environment from which they earn their income.

Businesses are part of the community, they are members of the society they live in, and like all members, they have interdependent relationships in those communities. Their survival, or social licence to operate if you must, depends on it.

Of course, this all goes to custard with businesses, and the investors that provide their capital, start to think that they belong at the top of the tree of power and that they should benefit at the expense of their customers, employees, suppliers, host governments and communities.

They can sustain this for a while by taking advantage of the significant power imbalance, but after a time, people understand that this behaviour has done profound damage environmentally, culturally and socially and they start demanding something better.

Surely the social purpose of business is to contribute to the community by creating wealth through buying and selling of useful goods and services that do not destroy the environment and people’s lives, providing employment and contributing to creating a community that we all want to live in.

11.27.13
by

Only a reassessment of our values will avert another crisis

Most financial service professionals believe tighter regulation of financial markets will not stop another financial crisis, according to a recent survey.

Perhaps a reminder of what happens when greed overtakes reason might help. Today the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said it estimates that the biggest US banks may still have to pay out more than $US100 billion to settle legal issues surrounding the rush for sub-prime mortgage products that started the global financial crisis in the first place. Not a great long-term return for the banks’ investors.

Or maybe a reality check about what their rampaging greed has meant for the rest of the citizens of the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is warning that the fallout of the financial crisis, is starting to affect the elderly with lower and delayed pension payments and the gap between the highest and lowest income households in developed countries widened in the three years since the crisis.

Sadly, the only way to affect real change in behaviour is to change the values of those in power, because it is those in power that set the agenda. Kinetic Partners, the same group that conducted the survey mentioned above also did research that found that most believed it was the culture set by the CEO that influenced whether good decisions were made and another financial crisis could be averted. This is backed by a whole swathe of academic research pointing to the powerful elite prioritising the values of our society.

So what are the most prominent values? Academics Bruno Dyck and David Schroeder suggest materialism and individualism are the twin hallmarks of the moral point of view that underpins management thought. The Protestant focus on work and individual struggle for salvation and emphasis on material success has become normalised in western management and is the ‘incontestable, objective, morally neutral reality’ adopted as the natural facts of life, rather than the moral facts of life. This translates into modern management’s focus on efficiency, productivity, profitability relative to other comparable companies and the expectations of the market.

The central criterion for managerial rhetoric is concerned with economic growth, organisational survival, profit and productivity. In academic texts on corporate finance this belief is reinforced.  According to the Principles of Corporate Finance, ‘the goal of maximising shareholder value is widely accepted in both theory and practice’ because, the authors argue that shareholders want three things, the first of which is ‘to be as rich as possible’. Another perspective on this is offered by Jill McMillan who argues that companies are held captive by ‘the tyranny of the bottom line’ and profits are for the benefit of the ‘privileged class of organisational shareholders who possess the dominant right to maximise return on their investment and the commitment of management to pursue that goal.’

But if much of the money is invested with ‘organisational shareholders’ (meaning institutional investors) comes from citizens investing for their retirement, then it should be us that guides which values dominate investment, and given a chance to have a say, I believe many people would have not ‘profit at all cost’ as their number one value.

Below is a simplified version of my suggested model for a two-way communication system with their members.Model for engagement

Related articles
10.13.13
by

Democratic capitalism achieves communism’s goal

Phillip Adams’ was bemoaning the failures of capitalism this week in The Weekend Australian, adding it to the pile of other failed ‘isms’ and he points out that we need new answers to stem the widening gulf between those that have and those that don’t. He proposes a hybrid economic model.

We don’t need to invent a hybrid. We have already done it, we just don’t recognise it. Democratic capitalism has succeeded in achieving communism’s ultimate goal. It has shifted the ownership of the means of production to the citizens away from unelected elites. In most Western nations, the citizens provide the money for substantial chunks of the equity markets and the bond markets. It is just when we put our money into our retirement funds, managed by institutional investors, the ownership of those funds is suddenly assigned to those institutional investors. Our money become ‘their investments’. When really, these investors are merely managing our money and it is our money that buys the shares (which are units of ownership in companies), so we own the companies. The key is to make the institutional investors listen to a wider array of voices as to what constitutes a long-term ‘value’ building in a company.

The problem is we are still living in an age that assigns a higher moral value to people with money (or control of other people’s money) rather than people with knowledge. We lionise business leaders for their ability to make money, not their ability to change the world for the better. We agonise that we will not have enough money in retirement to maintain our lifestyle, so we turn a blind eye to bad company behaviour in favour of returns. We value our ability to buy things, more than our ability to understand things.

Perversely though, more and more of us comfortable in our middle class lives are getting uncomfortable about how big business is shaping our society, our planet and the futures of those who may not have the opportunity to worry about whether to go to Bali or holiday at home this year.

If we want this to change, we have to challenge this power structure and its associated values. We need to engage with institutional investors and get them to step up to the plate in engaging with company management and boards on issues that matter to us. We need investors not to punish companies on the stock market when they choose to do something that is better for all of us in the long term, but shaves off some profit in the short term.

Institutional investors need to democratise investing and create opportunities for people to engage with them and share their views. A starting point may be a simple online tool, like Vote Compass. It was used in the latest Australian election to help voters understand what mattered to them and which party best represented their views. A similar tool could help institutional investors understand how we feel about particular issues. Institutional investors could then represent these views to senior managements of companies and hold them to account on behalf of us all.

Related articles

09.11.13
by

Who owns what is as clear as mud

One of the great transparency furphies in the corporate world is that you can find out who are the top shareholders by looking in their annual reports. The problem is a flick through the annual reports of most of Australia’s largest companies you may think you are reading the same list over and over again.

Most of the names on the list are nominee companies. The biggest ones in Australia are HSBC Custody Nominees (Australia) Ltd, JP Morgan Nominees Australia Ltd and National Nominees Ltd.

Nominee companies are custodian services that allow investments from a number of investors to be aggregated into one entity. According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) they typically hold securities, arrange the banking of dividends and some form of consolidated reporting. They don’t engage with senior management or boards about how companies are run on behalf of their clients.

In fact, large listed companies raised the use of nominee companies as a key barrier to engaging  institutional investors in submissions to the 2008 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into barriers to the effective engagement of shareholders on corporate governance. The companies said the use of nominee entities also made finding the ultimate owners of shares difficult. This makes it very hard to align the long-term investment goals of superannuation funds and the short-term remuneration and performance goals of senior management and professional investors.

The parliamentary committee also found that institutional investors, such as superannuation funds, made decisions about whether to engage with companies’ management and boards based primarily on the economic cost to them. Some found engagement to be a distraction from their stated primary role of generating investment returns. The use of nominee companies would provide a useful way of distancing themselves from the companies and, therefore, actual engagement.

So it appears institutional investors not only don’t canvas the opinions of the people that provide them the money to invest, they are not that interested in engaging with the companies they invest in either. If they do, they certainly don’t share it with their clients.

08.28.13
by

Who pays for Woolworths’ bigger piece of pie?

Woolworths reported another increase in its net profit after tax today and shareholders will receive an increased dividend. This is great news for short-term investors, but with Woolworths casting a bigger and bigger shadow over our retail sector, it is also important to look at how the pursuit of these numbers impacts our society.

For instance, despite consumer price deflation, Woolworths has managed to increase its profit margin on its continuing operations to 26.94%, its fifth straight rise and an increase of more than one per cent on five years ago. So the question is, if prices are dropping but profit margins are rising, who is being squeezed?

The Federal Government’s FOODMap report, released in July 2012, analysed the Australian food supply chain. According to the report, Woolworths and Coles account for 68% of all food and liquor sales in Australia in 2010/2011. The report found that increased pressure from these food retailers for cost savings and larger scale has led to further rationalisation in food production. That means more people going out of business and fewer people producing more at lower margins. Further pressure is placed on these producers from cheaper imports being substituted for local product.

Both Woolworths and the Wesfarmers-owned Coles are pushing hard into the ‘own label’ space in their supermarkets and this has given them enormous, and uneven levels of power in the supply chain. Smaller, local producers have no bargaining power and those that want to stay in business must agree to the retail giant’s terms. This doesn’t just affect food producers, but all of the suppliers to the business.

So while the stock markets may revel in the results of this retail giant today, surely as ultimate investors in the company, we have to ask what other costs are we prepared to pay for Woolworths to generate these profits.

We, as members of superannuation funds and other investment vehicles, provide the capital to the likes of Woolworths, and we can use our collective power to get them to be more transparent about their activities. We just have to get the institutional investors who manage our money on our behalf to be more active.

Related articles
08.20.13
by

Will savers have a say in Kay’s Investor Forum?

In July last year, John Kay released his Review of the UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision Making which examined the impact of recent behaviour in the UK equity market on investment performance and corporate governance.

One of the key recommendations was the creation of an Investor Forum, a place where a collective group of institutional investors could discuss issues affecting the companies in which they invest, collectively act on issues and advocate on behalf of savers (the people like you and me who entrust their money to institutional investors).

This recommendation was silent, however, on how these institutional investors may collect and reflect the views and values of these savers so they can advocate on their behalf effectively. It was also silent on how this advocacy and collective action be communicated back to the savers so they can see what the investors are doing and participate in an ongoing conversation about that activity.

Then in June, nearly a year after the release of the Kay Review, a number of these institutional investors, including Schroders, Legal & General, Baillie Gifford and The Wellcome Trust announced that it was setting up a working group to look at the concept of an Investor Forum. The three big industry bodies*, who represent the asset management and institutional investment groups, all back the initiative.

But will this working group consider collating the views and values of those savers or will it be a closed shop for investment professionals? How will they rank the issues on which they act collectively and on which they advocate? What safeguards will be in place to ensure they do what they promise to do and act upon the long-term interest of savers, not just as savers but as citizens, employees, consumers and community members?

A report is due out in November.

*The Investment Management Association (IMA), the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

08.15.13
by

Drowning in profit but banks won’t pay for their life buoy

The Commonwealth Bank yesterday reported a record net profit of $7.67 billion, adding to the $23.5 billion in net profits it made in the previous four years.  Yet it remains opposed to the Government’s proposed 0.05% bank levy.  The proceeds of a levy would be saved and used to fish financial institutions out of deep water in the future, rather than relying on taxpayers.

Together the four big banks’ net profits for the past four years have been in excess of $92 billion. So, you would think they would be able to afford to fund the levy without passing it on.

The industry’s lobby group, the Australian Banking Association (ABA), says the levy is unnecessary and the costs associated with it would most likely be passed onto its customers, you and me, rather than let it impact their bottom line.

Hang on, in order to keep the shareholders happy, they are going to sting their customers instead?  But their customers ARE their shareholders.

When the banks’ senior managements say shareholder they mean ‘institutional investor’, conveniently forgetting that institutional investors only manage our money, they don’t own it. They invest on our behalf, but we are the ultimate owners. We are also the taxpayers that would have to bail out a failing bank.

If you have a superannuation fund, you are very likely to have some ownership in bank shares. The S&P/ASX 200 index is a list of the 200 largest companies in Australia by market capitalisation (ie. the number of shares multiplied by the share price). As at 28 June 2013, the big four banks made up four of the top five largest companies, which means most superannuation funds would have some shareholding in one, if not all, of the banks. Many international asset managers are also likely to be invested in these large Australian companies too.

So, given the shareholders, customers and taxpayers are the same people, perhaps there is another way to look at this.

The levy would be an insurance policy against the collapse of a financial pillar of the Australian economy. Surely the banks should fund the levy without punishing the customers, given the money raised by the levy might save them in the event of a crisis. The institutional investors should not punish the banks through selling down their stock if they have a period of flat profit growth due to absorbing the levy, because their clients are the banks’ customers. Also, creating this pool of ‘insurance’ is in the long-term interest of the shareholders because a collapsed bank is worth nothing.

Related articles
08.09.13
by

Will more transparency in super funds mean we have more say?

From July next year, superannuation funds are required to tell their members what investments are held in the fund. The question is, along with letting us know what they have bought on our behalf, will the funds also let us know whether they are discussing issues with management and, if so, what they discussed? Will they ask us what we think?

History does not bode well.

In 2008, a Parliamentary Committee found that institutional investors, such as superannuation funds, made decisions about whether to engage with companies based primarily on the economic cost to them. Some found engagement to be a distraction from generating investment returns. These conclusions followed earlier research in 1998  that showed active participation in company decision-making was not high on the agenda of most institutional investors. It found voting decisions made by these institutions were not transparent or prioritised.

So when we get access to all this information, what will it actually mean? Will we have any idea how long shares in companies have been held? Whether there has been any engagement with the management and whether they are engaging on issues that matter to their members.
If you had the chance to influence the senior managements of Australia’s biggest banks, Telstra or the big supermarkets, what would be most important issues to you?
Related articles
08.08.13
by

We own the companies

Did you know that every person with a superannuation fund is part of the largest group of owners of Australia’s equity market and bond (debt) market? Probably not. Most people don’t.

Around 40% of the Australian equity market and 30% of the bond market are owned by institutional investors, who manage our money in superannuation funds and other pooled funds.  With more than 70% of adult Australians having some form of superannuation savings, we are a formidable ownership group that is growing all the time.

The same is true of other Western economies. Some  44.9% of the UK’s equity market is owned by pooled accounts, such as UK pension funds, and mutual funds own 24% of the US stock market.

So why is it, that we are becoming  more concerned about corporate behaviour but feel less able to influence decision making?

Well, we outsource the management of our money to institutional investors. Institutional investors include the superannuation funds, pension funds and professional asset managers who are sub-contracted to manage our money. Once we invest in funds, it is hard to get information about what they invest in and how active they are on our behalf.

Perhaps it is time we get involved and start asking questions. Making a profit is not a bad thing, but it is important we start weighing up what is the cost of prioritising endless profit growth.

Collectively, we could be more powerful than we think. We could use our power to get companies to manage for our long-term economic and social future again and not for the short-term gains of the stock market.

Related articles