Description: Cooperation between governments is a good thing. And in Atlantic Canada, the four provinces have cooperated for years as shareholders in one gambling organization, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC). This week, however, an audit report issued by the four auditors general of the Atlantic provinces concluded that the four provinces need to do a… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Corporate Governance
Corporate governance at MEC
Description: Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) has responded to concern from its members and scrapped certain criteria it had proposed for its board members. Given its role as a major retailer, MEC wanted board members who had governance or management experience in large and complex organizations. But this upset MEC’s members who appealed to the principle… Read more »
Voting power
Description: The Canadian federal government is on its way to giving shareholders increased power to vote against a board director. Under the rules right now, voters can only withhold a vote for a nominee they are unhappy with. This means, theoretically, that a “bad” director could be elected with a single vote if all other… Read more »
Wells Fargo Woes
Description: Not too many people would have wanted to be in the shoes of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf last week as he faced a grilling from US politicians over his bank’s tactics. Employees had been accused of opening customer accounts without their clients’ knowledge in an effort to meet sales targets. In cases, Stumpf conceded,… Read more »
MEC changes gears
Description: Mountain Equipment Co-op, better known perhaps by its signature letters MEC, is a much admired Canadian co-operative. Members can still join for simply putting down $5 for a share. But recently some members have been concerned that MEC seems to be shifting its governance profile to be more corporate like, meaning that some members… Read more »
Chip Wilson Exits
Description: This past week, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson left the board of the popular clothing retailer. Wilson has joined the a competitor clothing company founded by Shannon, his wife, and J.J., his son. This new company, Kit and Ace, appears set to compete with Lululemon in the high-end clothing market. Source: Globe and Mail.com Date: … Read more »
Modernizing shareholder governance
Description: Last Thursday Canadian Securities Administrators labelled the shareholders’ voting system in Canada “antiquated and fragmented”. This “antiquated and fragmented” approach has lead to miscounts in votes by shareholders at corporate meetings, generating complaints that more votes are cast than the number of outstanding shares in the company. Handling of proxy votes appears to be… Read more »
Praise for diversity in Canada’s banks
Description: Canada’s financial sector has been ranked third in a list of 19 countries for the proportion of female executives serving these institutions. The report by Oliver Wyman credits “a web of support” in the industry for the fact that 23 percent of Canadian financial executives are female. Norway at 35 percent and Sweden at… Read more »
Big banks busted
Description: Following on the heels of the Libor scandal (in which banks were found out for manipulating short term interest rates), on Wednesday documents disclosed that six large banks were fined $4.3 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “B”) for manipulating the foreign exchange market. Additional fines and civil suits could keep this nasty story… Read more »
Having their say on pay
Description: Shareholders are beginning to flex a bit more muscle in Canada when it comes to executive compensation. In short, a recent survey of shareholder voting at some of Canada’s largest companies shows that voters may be aligning executive pay with return to shareholders. Source: Globe and Mail.com Date: September 7, 2014, last updated September… Read more »
Canadian Accounting Products
- Accounting Principles Seventh Canadian Edition
- Intermediate Accounting Eleventh Canadian Edition
- Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making, 6th Canadian Edition
- Understanding Financial Accounting, Canadian Edition
- Managerial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making, 3rd Canadian Edition
- Cost Management: Measuring, Monitoring, and Motivating Performance, Canadian Edition
- Auditing: A Practical Approach First Canadian Edition
- Advanced Accounting, Canadian Edition
- Accounting for Managers, Canadian Edition
