Tomorrow’s Owners – defining, differentiating and rewarding stewardship is a report on work in progress since our first report last year. We describe in this document The Tomorrow’s Company Stewardship Principles. These are intended to provide a foundation for differentiating between good and bad stewardship.The report also describes how changes in shareholder and board practice could be encouraged by the development of a kite mark for stewardship investment, and how government could act to promote improved stewardship.In parallel, we are studying the Swedish approach to nomination committees and considering the potential for this approach to improve the stewardship of companies in the UK.   

   “A lack of long-term stewardship by company heads and shareholders is at the heart of the current financial crisis, an influential think-tank says in a report published on Wednesday. Tomorrow’s Company, whose previous research has helped shape UK company law, urges the government to understand better the effects of the growing “casino economy”, where activities such as derivatives trading are often far removed from the real economy activity to which they theoretically relate. The report warns against the search for scapegoats for the current crisis and says that it is wrong to attack private equity, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds for irresponsibility, noting that different shareholders perform different functions. However, it condemns the practice of borrowing shares for voting purposes and asks if investors need to toughen up their engagement to change company behaviour or divest holdings in companies with particular shortcomings. Mark Goyder, Tomorrow’s Company...

In the UK, the US and many other countries, existing board election processes mean shareholders rely almost entirely on existing board members to identify board candidates. In the vast majority of cases, shareholders have no real say over who is chosen to represent their interests and those of the company they own. Board nomination committees are sub-committees of the board itself. Over the last 10 years, Sweden has moved away from such a system. This report examines the Swedish experience of shareholders taking this key governance function into their own hands. The report also considers lessons that can be drawn for governance in the UK and other countries with dispersed shareholdings.  It  concludes with an agenda for action by listed companies, institutional investors, the Institutional Shareholders Committee  and the Financial Reporting Council. 

This piece documents a Management Today and Tomorrow's Copmany rountable discussion kindly hosted by Lovells. In it a number of leading business practicitioners and thinkers sat down to answer some of the key questions that came out of the Tomorrow's Owners - Stewardship of tomorrow's company report and it produced some rather interesting ideas for change. Here is a full list of the very high quality participants: Tim Wates, chairman, Wates Family Holdings; Will Hutton, executive vice chair, The Work Foundation; Adrian Beecroft, senior managing partner, Apax Partners; Sir John Egan, chairman, Severn Trent Water;  Colin Melvin, CEO, Hermes Equity Ownership Services; Mark Goyder, founder director, Tomorrow's Company; Rajesh Sennik, leader, private equity and corporate strategy, Accenture; Round Table chairman: Matthew Gwyther, editor, MT; Blake Lee, Harwood environmental consultant; Richard Ufland, corporate partner, Lovells;

A speech given by Sir David Walker at the Tomorrow's Company lecture on 'Stewardship in practice: Renewing behaviours and changing cultures in the City' - this was given on 19th May 2010 at Gresham College, London.