From Shareholder wealth to Stakeholder interests: CEO Capitulation or Empty Doublespeak?
aswathdamodaran.substack.com
Last week. the Business Roundtable, composed of the CEOs of some of America’s largest companies, put out a press release that hinted at a fundamental, perhaps revolutionary, shift in corporate focus. In the statement, the CEOs seemed to be saying that corporations should be run to protect all corporate stakeholders, defined to include customers, society and employees, rather than hew to its conventional objective of maximizing shareholder wealth. The reason that I say “seemed to” is because the document was written in CEO-speak, full of platitudes and open to interpretation. I will confess that I have a personal interest in this debate since I teach and write about corporate finance, a discipline built around shareholder wealth maximization, and valuation, which is about measuring it.
From Shareholder wealth to Stakeholder interests: CEO Capitulation or Empty Doublespeak?
From Shareholder wealth to Stakeholder…
From Shareholder wealth to Stakeholder interests: CEO Capitulation or Empty Doublespeak?
Last week. the Business Roundtable, composed of the CEOs of some of America’s largest companies, put out a press release that hinted at a fundamental, perhaps revolutionary, shift in corporate focus. In the statement, the CEOs seemed to be saying that corporations should be run to protect all corporate stakeholders, defined to include customers, society and employees, rather than hew to its conventional objective of maximizing shareholder wealth. The reason that I say “seemed to” is because the document was written in CEO-speak, full of platitudes and open to interpretation. I will confess that I have a personal interest in this debate since I teach and write about corporate finance, a discipline built around shareholder wealth maximization, and valuation, which is about measuring it.