Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Bogle on Corporate Governance

From a Morningstar interview with John Bogle:

"...one of the most serious problems we have in financial America, and that is what we call the agency problem, and that is that corporate America is no longer controlled by investors, its controlled by agents of investors. Used to be that mutual funds and pension funds and endowment funds controlled about 8% of all the stock in America.

Today, they control 70% of all the stock in America. Corporate America will march to their tune if they just wake up and say, here's what you're going to do; I am going to tell you what to do. Think of the difference if Corporation X had a single shareholder with 70%; there would be no question about who is the boss of that corporation. Forget who is Chief Executive, he doesn't count, the boss counts and the boss doesn't need any titles, doesn't need to be the Chairman, the President and the CEO. He owns 70% of the stock, he is the owner. That's the mood I want to get our institutional investors in, and I will keep trying." - John Bogle


Check out the full interview

Adam

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