Board Elections and Scandal Directors

In an article entitled Teflon Directors published today at the Forbes website, Maya Roney reports on the present whereabouts of the directors who served on the boards of Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom, Adelphia, Tyco and Waste Management during the 'scandal' periods.1

Between them, these directors still hold in excess of 120 directorships at other public listed US companies.

We know that shareholders have a difficult time challenging board nominations supported by incumbent boards. However, withheld votes in director elections indicate general levels of shareholder dissatisfaction with the status quo.

In 2003, shortly after the breaking news of corporate scandals, average votes for the 'teflon directors' listed in the article was 3% less than that of all other nominees to US public company boards. Since the average level of support for board nominees is around 95%, 3% makes quite a big difference in guaging general levels of shareholder confidence.

However, the margin has narrowed to 1.3% in 2004 and 0.5% in 2005. This suggests that shareholders become complacent or, as Roney points out, are not informed about the past failures of board nominees: "...many companies don't make it easy for shareholders to find out where their directors have been..." omiting mention of Enron, Global Crossing or WorldCom from directors' bios.

The Corporate Library maintains a database of 'problem directors', amongst which are listed many of the teflon directors. Now that the majority vote standard is taking hold, reputation may start counting for something in director elections.

1. This blogger was quoted in the article.

Technorati Search Tags: corporate governance, director elections, majority vote, shareholder democracy

Comments

[BELIMYCLE]

The dolls' house, that most popular and well-loved toy for small girls (and many a little boy) is a rare thing - a traditional toy with few gimmicks whose interest still endures with today's technically - astute younger generation. Initially however the very first dollhouses (or doll's houses, in the United Kingdom where some of the first examples were made) were not intended for children and were certainly not play things. Known as as 'baby houses'(indicating simply 'small' houses) they were not dolls' houses as we now understand them and in fact were not even in the shape of a house, but comprised of two or three 'display' cases, each furnished as a separate miniature room with tiny furniture and furnishings. Filled with beautifully observed miniature architectural detailsthey were made for grown-ups to admire and were usually commissioned by wealthy households in Germany and England as little 'curiosity cabinets' to arouse intrigue and impress with their craftsmanship.The sixteenth centuryBy roughly the mid sixteenth century, 'baby houses' had come to more closely resemble the dollshouses we would now recognise. The assembled cabinets now became be arranged into the shape of a house completed with a roof. The outer cabinet doors would be painted to resemble as a exterior of a brick or stone house. Occasionally the role of these dollshouses may have been to instruct the servants of a household in domestic skills and therefore every room from the grand salons to the humble servants quarters would be represented. These dolls' houses may have been slightly simpler - other dollhouses though, built for moneyed aristocratic ladies, were astonishingly elaborate and beautifully finished, complete with glass windows. Existing well known country houses and the individual rooms within them were fastidiously reproduced at a tiny scale.Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuriesThese dolls' houses would have been manufactured not by craftsmen who specialised in miniature (who really did not exist at the time) but instead by the same master craftsmen who made full size houses and furniture. The cost of this would have been far outside the reach of all but the very wealthy in society. These beautiful show-house doll houses continued to be made during the course of the 17th and the eighteenth centuries and many beautiful examples can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Childhood museum in London. However it was only with the ?beginning of mass manufacturing and factory production that these expensive items could begin to find popularity across a wider section of society. Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries?During course of the nineteenth century, the advent of mass production enabled the manufacture of dollhouses which were cheaper, simpler, and therefore available to a wide breadth of the upper and middle classes. Famous dollhouse companies emerged such as Moritz Reichel and Christian Hacker,?Evans Cartwright and Siber Fleming?all manufacturing factory-produced dollhouses. It was during this period that the dollhouse came to be considered primarily as a toy for children rather than a curiosity-piece for adults.By the end of the C19th, American companies were mass producing dollhouses directly for the US market. These doll houses were designed with much less ornamentation both to appeal to children, with picture book more simple exteriors, and of course to maintain an affordable commodity. The walls of the inside of the dollhouse were not painted by hand but were finished with printed paper and printed illustrations.Queen Mary's dollhouseWhilst throughout the course of the twentieth century dolls' houses continued to become less expensive, simpler and more easily available to the general population, no account of their history could possibly be complete without mention of the most imposing and most outstanding showpiece dollshouse ever produced - the dollshouse known as the 'Queen Mary' which was commissioned by the Queen herself in nineteen twenty and still displayed today at Windsor castle in England. Finished to an astonishing level of detail and lifelikeness, it encompassed the work from upwards of fifteen hundred of England's finest craftsmen and miniature specialists. It is fully finished both inside and out, from the grandest ballrooms to the lowly servants accommodation. The doll house has elevators that actually worked, real running (heated!) water and electric-powered illumination.Painted ceilings include mythological and biblical scenes. The grand salons and dining rooms are furnished with tiny antique furniture, made by the most highly regarded contemporary furniture-makers. A 'safe room' contains miniature replicas of the crown jewels, including real diamonds and rubies! Suits of armour adorn the halls, the clocks, made by Cartier, actually work, as do the tiny guns and even the keys which turn in the real locks. A library is stocked with real miniature books, contributed by all the leading authors of the day. No detail has been left out - down to a tiny mousetrap, wired and ready to catch mice with tiny lumps of cheese - making it a superb timepiece recording of a luxurious stately home of the time and the everyday lives of its inhabitants. Today it is visited by dollhouse fans in their millions, and you can read more about it in this fascinating BBC article, or even peek into the rooms in this video.Twentieth centuryAnd so on through the 20th century - and after World War Two, the degree of mechanized dollshouse production stepped up as inexpensive materials such as metal, plastic and fibre board meant that the dollshouse could finally complete its evolution from a 'toy' for wealthy grownups to a popular children's toy, available to virtually everyone.

锘裤儕銈ゃ偔銉曘儶銉?/a>