Macquarie releases all management agreements
February 2, 2010
Dear Mayne Reporters,
Corporate governance campaigners have had a big win this morning when Macquarie Group relented and publically released all their management contracts for their various Australian listed funds.
Check out the Macquarie Airports announcement which includes changes to the way directors are appointed to give shareholders more power.
It was a long campaign led by Risk Metrics and we were directly rebuffed at the Macquarie Airports, Macquarie Group and Babcock & Brown AGMs when requesting precisely this disclosure earlier in the year.
Indeed, forcing disclosure of all these agreements was the basis of last month's tilt at the ASX board as you can see from this package.
Challenger Infrastructure Fund led the way on disclosure 12 days ago last Friday and now that Macquarie has relented, the pressure on Babcock & Brown will be irresistible. What on earth can B&B Power and B&B Infrastructure say at their AGMs in early November now that they are last man standing on the corporate governance low road.
Meanwhile, the Asciano AGM kicks off at 11.30am this morning and should be a belter.
The webcast from about midday onwards should have plenty of fireworks on issues such as executive pay, excessive debt, the Brambles folly, relations with Macquarie, the tanking share price, CEO Mark Rowsthorn's gearings levels and much more.
We'll report back later today after the AWB EGM at 3pm which will approve a new constitution and finally drag governance at that company into the 21st century.
Finally, listen to last night's regular spot on 774 ABC Melbourne with Lindy Burns when we went through all the ins and outs of the government's bailout package, along with issues such as the Pacific Brands AGM and crashing retail sales.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.
Corporate governance campaigners have had a big win this morning when Macquarie Group relented and publically released all their management contracts for their various Australian listed funds.
Check out the Macquarie Airports announcement which includes changes to the way directors are appointed to give shareholders more power.
It was a long campaign led by Risk Metrics and we were directly rebuffed at the Macquarie Airports, Macquarie Group and Babcock & Brown AGMs when requesting precisely this disclosure earlier in the year.
Indeed, forcing disclosure of all these agreements was the basis of last month's tilt at the ASX board as you can see from this package.
Challenger Infrastructure Fund led the way on disclosure 12 days ago last Friday and now that Macquarie has relented, the pressure on Babcock & Brown will be irresistible. What on earth can B&B Power and B&B Infrastructure say at their AGMs in early November now that they are last man standing on the corporate governance low road.
Meanwhile, the Asciano AGM kicks off at 11.30am this morning and should be a belter.
The webcast from about midday onwards should have plenty of fireworks on issues such as executive pay, excessive debt, the Brambles folly, relations with Macquarie, the tanking share price, CEO Mark Rowsthorn's gearings levels and much more.
We'll report back later today after the AWB EGM at 3pm which will approve a new constitution and finally drag governance at that company into the 21st century.
Finally, listen to last night's regular spot on 774 ABC Melbourne with Lindy Burns when we went through all the ins and outs of the government's bailout package, along with issues such as the Pacific Brands AGM and crashing retail sales.
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by Stephen Mayne with occasional email editions. To unsubscribe from the emails click here.