A few months ago Amazon put Charles Ellis’ new book, Index Revolution, on my recommended list. I probably would not have bought it had I not heard Ellis give an extended interview on Bloomberg Radio one morning while walking the dogs. He is quite persuasive about the rationale for index funds. Although I own index funds, it is not a subject I had given much thought.
Of the three primary corporate finance decisions, distribution policy is the most transparent to shareholders. The purpose of this whitepaper is to help directors formulate and communicate a distribution policy that contributes to shareholder wealth and satisfaction.
The motivation behind incentive pay at the startup level is that in order for the employees to strike it rich, the company must succeed by hitting certain milestones. This aligns employees’ personal goals with the company’s overall success. The slight misalignment of this structure, however, can lead to employee turnover at companies.
The traditional method for measuring return premiums is backward-looking. Analysts typically compare realized returns for various asset classes over long historical periods, inferring the premiums from the differences in the return series. With regard to the size premium in particular, this approach has a number of shortcomings.
On December 27, 2016 Toshiba Corporation, the Japanese electronics conglomerate, announced the possibility of a goodwill impairment charge related to its U.S. nuclear power plant construction business, specifically, CB&I Stone & Webster Inc. (“Stone & Webster”), which was acquired for $229 million in late 2015 by Toshiba’s Westinghouse Electric Company subsidiary. Both the buyer and target have been plagued by financial difficulties (and goodwill impairment charges) since that time.
