Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn't have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top - as we always do.
What if lawmakers never spoke to their constituents? Oddly enough, that's exactly how corporate America operates. Shareholders vote for directors, but the directors rarely, if ever, communicate with them.
I don't believe that someone who sets up an institution should be able to take out the money from the institution or pay dividends to shareholders. I am not saying that institutions should be set up for charity.
The employers who do best are employers who reject these false choices. It's not a zero-sum world where you either take care of your workers or you take care of your shareholders. You can do good and do well, too.
Scale can create value for shareholders; for consumers, who are beneficiaries of better products, delivered more quickly and at less cost; for the businesses that are our customers; and for the economy as a whole.
Nationalization would likely mean wiping out the big banks' managements and shareholders. It's because that reckoning has mostly been avoided so far that those bankers may be the Americans in the greatest denial of all.
I can make it very clear: I get paid if we make good investments. And if we don't, I don't get paid. I have no incentive to sell our companies to Google; the entrepreneurs get to decide that. We are minority shareholders.
As companies become bigger, the global environment more competitive, and the rate of disruptive technological innovation ever faster, the value to shareholders of attracting the best possible CEO increases correspondingly.
Corporations are driving down wages and working conditions across the globe to maximize returns for their shareholders. They use their power and influence to ensure the rules align with their interests - no matter the cost.
In terms of companies, they must stand for something bigger. They must be dedicated to something larger than financial results. I reject the Milton Friedman belief that a company's sole responsibility is to the shareholders.
No doubt, corporate CEOs who lie to their shareholders and politicians who lie to their public know and believe intellectually that lying is immoral. Why then do they lie? They lie to others because they first lie to themselves.
I don't believe in quotas for quotas sake, but I think companies without any women on their boards should write to their shareholders and explain why - explain how many women they've interviewed, why they haven't taken anybody on.
I actually am a capitalist, and I believe in shareholders. But I believe in them as a result of what I do, not as a reason for what I'm doing. The same with profits - profits alone cannot be an objective. It has to have a purpose.
When it comes to major decisions in any area of the organization, I like to get the blessings of the shareholders - of which my siblings are the majority - and build a consensus even if it isn't something that all of them agree on.
Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But, looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss.
In a couple of years, the Chinese will be seen as regular participants in international industry. Their companies have to report to shareholders as well as to the Chinese authorities. They need to make money, they have to be efficient.
The College Board is officially a non-profit. But all that means is that it doesn't have shareholders and that their financial accountings must be available to the public; it certainly doesn't mean that they're not also into making money.
Russia has a well-known reputation for corruption; unfortunately, I discovered that it was far worse than many had thought. While working in Moscow I learned that Russian oligarchs stole from shareholders, which included the fund I advised.
What I am saying is, all health care has a problem with costs. Medicare is growing slower than the private insurance plans. Why? Because of their efficiency. They don't have to give money to shareholders. Why should be defending shareholders?
As the head of the public company, you can't say you can't sell, because then you're telling your shareholders that your own personal feelings about your assets are more important than their money. And they won't invest with you if you do that.
I don't think of myself as a hard man, but other people may think otherwise. You know you have obligations to do the best you can for people, for your job, for your shareholders... it all has to be balanced between the hardness and the softness.
The Bank had never used the word 'corruption' at all until I got there, and the reason for that was, as the general counsel pointed out to me, that quite a number of our shareholders represented were not immune from corruption in their governments.
Corporate executives need to re-frame their responsibilities to include the interests of all the stakeholders in society at large; not just shareholders, but also employees, the citizens of our communities, and those who care about the environment.
Most chief executives rise to that position by being good operating managers. Few have extensive experience or training with capital allocation. What CEO wants to return excess cash to shareholders when it could be used to expand his or her empire?
Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.
When you're CEO, you have to have two conditions: first, shareholders need to trust you and want you to head your company. The second is that you need to feel the motivation to do the job. So, as long as both are reunited, you continue to do the job.
For decades, activist shareholders were an entertaining, but largely ignored, Wall Street sideshow. Disgruntled investors would attend annual meetings to harangue executives, criticize strategies - and protest that their complaints were being ignored.
I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that's just how I am in real life. I don't want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.
Companies do not commit crimes; only their agents do. And while a company might get the benefit of some such crimes, prosecuting the company would inevitably punish, directly or indirectly, the many employees and shareholders who were totally innocent.
It's a nightmare to administer some of this sort of thing, but I want to tell the shareholders of Berkshire, to the percent we own marketable securities or things for which there are market, even if those markets - I want to tell them what it's all about.
It is very clear that the present system of innovation for medicines is very inefficient and really somewhat corrupt. It benefits shareholders over patients; it produces for the rich markets and not for the poor and does not produce for minority diseases.
We have moved from treating funds as investment trusts designed to serve their owner-beneficiaries to treating funds as consumer products, designed to attract the largest possible assets. This new approach has ill-served the interests of fund shareholders.
A press statement may be given with a very good intention, but it says nothing beyond it. If it comes from corporations they run, then it is corporate social responsibility (CSR). That's different from philanthropy. CSR is a lot of shareholders, including me.
I've heard people say South Africans are arrogant, that they act no differently from their colonial masters. That needs to change. It's in your business interest as an entrepreneur to form meaningful partnerships. That's how you do well for your shareholders.
Our first use of cash is invested organically, secondly returning values our shareholders - roughly 100 percent free cash flow. And then thirdly, mergers, acquisitions, partnerships that complement our organic strategy. We are going to continue down that path.
If power lies more and more in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one's vote at the ballot box, but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders' meeting. When provoked, corporations respond.
If the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were private companies and were chronically unable to accomplish one of their key missions, their shareholders would have long ago revolted, fired their management, and their stock would be trading at values near zero.
There are certainly valid reasons for taking a company private, and it's also possible that C.E.O.s perform better when monitored by a small number of owners in a private company rather than by the dispersed and often uninterested shareholders of a public corporation.
Compensation needs to be predominately performance-driven. If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which I believe it was in IBM's case, nobody would ever argue. If the shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't make millions of dollars.
After watching Taro reach the brink of bankruptcy, seeing their shares delisted from trading, hearing endless false promises about receiving audited financial statements, and witnessing an unchecked drain of company resources, the shareholders have clearly had enough.
I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.
If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which I believe it was in IBM's case, nobody would ever argue. If the shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't make millions of dollars. My salary was the same for 10 years. It was all performance-based.
He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency.
Back in the 1970s, Kodak tried to give $25m to a black civil rights organisation in Rochester, New York. The company's shareholders rose up in arms: making this politically charged offering wasn't the reason they had entrusted Kodak with their money. The donation was withdrawn.
I definitely have a shareholders' perspective. I'm not doing that altruistically. I'm doing that because it's in my own self interest to do it. I think that's good for my other shareholders because they go along with me: If I do well for myself, then they do well for themselves.
When you're C.E.O., you have to have two conditions: first, shareholders need to trust you and want you to head your company. The second is that you need to feel the motivation to do the job. So, as long as both are reunited, you continue to do the job. And today, they are reunited.
My obligation is to the owners of Barclays, my shareholders. They hired me. People who criticise compensation for individuals in isolation at, say, BarCap, individuals who don't work in the U.K. and are competing with U.S., German or Asian banks, they should look at all these factors.
Higher capital requirements increase bank costs, and at least some of those costs will be passed along to bank customers and shareholders. But in the longer term, stronger prudential requirements for large banking firms will produce more sustainable credit availability and economic growth.
Patagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a 'B-corporation.' That's a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment, as well as shareholders.
At a lot of companies founded on principles, the notion of making money is almost antithetical to the ethos of the place. From the very beginning, our business has existed to meet the needs and desires of multiple constituencies: customers, team members, vendors, shareholders, the community.