Thursday 4 June 2009

Has the ISC got the message?

Lord Myners has been very critical of the (non) role of the Institutional Shareholders Committee in some recent speeches. The ISC brings together the main instititional investor lobby groups - ABI, AIC, IMA and NAPF. It is due to put out a paper in response to the crisis which, rumour has it, will appear shortly.

Let's hope the ISC - and its constituent members - have got the message. The worst thing it could do would be to produce a 2-3 page piece of blah that does little more than restate best practice. What we need is clear statement that institutional investors of all kinds recognise their fiduciary duty to act as good owners, and this means going beyond just being willing to vote against the odd pay report now and then. Also it shouldn't simply be up to fund managers' clients to mandate them to do this - though that would help - they should do this stuff anyway.

I'm sure the ISC's paper will be read with great interest when it appears.

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