The bank has been hit by two financial scandals (Archegos Capital and Greensill) in recent week which have raised questions on its governance and risk management processes. As a shareholder and representative of numerous Swiss pension funds, Ethos has sent to the board of directors questions in relation with these recent cases.
Ethos published this Thursday the 20th edition of its voting guidelines and governance principles for the 2021 general meetings. Ethos asks the major emitters of greenhouse gases to publish and submit to shareholders' approval an annual report on their climate strategy and introduces new voting criteria into its guidelines.
At Credit Suisse Group’s annual general meeting to be held on 30 April 2020, Ethos recommends not to grant the discharge to the bank’s governing bodies, in light of the serious governance failings revealed by the surveillance of the bank’s former managers. Ethos also recommends to oppose the board and executive remuneration, as well as the re-election of the chairman of the board of directors. Finally, due to the economic uncertainties relative to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ethos recommends shareholders to forgo the payment of the dividend this year.
Ethos Foundation recommends to support the board of directors and not to approve the election of Mark Kerekes at the extraordinary general meeting to be held on 30 October. This meeting was convened by the group of shareholders led by Sentis Capital (owned by the Russian investor Petr Kondrashev) and other shareholders (together holding 11% of the company's capital) to elect their representative to the board of directors. Meyer Burger's board unanimously recommends that this election be rejected.
Ethos publishes an Engagement Paper that summarizes its five expectations regarding corporate tax responsibility of listed companies. Following recent cases of aggressive tax optimization practices of certain companies, institutional investors consider these practices to be major financial and reputational risks for companies and their shareholders
Since the entry into force of the Ordinance against excessive remuneration (the Minder initiative), the different votes on board and executive remuneration are the proposals most contested by the shareholders, which is reflected in a stabilisation of overall remuneration in SPI companies and a slight decrease in the largest listed companies.
The general meetings of Ethos Foundation and Ethos Services will take place on the 14th of June in Fribourg. These meetings are an important milestone in Ethos’ history. Dr Dominique Biedermann, the last remaining Ethos founding member will not stand for re-election after 21 years of continuous engagement in favour of Ethos’ development. The boards of directors propose to appoint Dr Rudolf Rechsteiner as Chairman of Ethos Foundation and Ms Beth Krasna as Chairwoman of Ethos Services. The boards are convinced that these two personalities will actively contribute to maintaining Ethos’ strong presence as a major institution in the socially responsible investment field in Switzerland.
Ethos is very satisfied that an overall agreement has been signed between the board of directors of Sika, the Burkard family and Saint-Gobain to the benefit of all parties concerned and that safeguards the independence of the company. As an accessory party alongside the board of directors in the legal procedure opposing the company to the Burkard family, Ethos Foundation has always supported the efforts to maintain the independence of Sika. Ethos welcomes the decision of the board of directors to call an extraordinary general meeting on the 11th of June 2018 that will establish the equal treatment of all shareholders.
Ethos CEO Vincent Kaufmann is delivering a statement at the Credit Suisse annual general meeting today recommending that shareholders vote against the board’s proposals regarding board and executive remuneration and against the re-election of the chairman of the board. Ethos also asks that the board re-inforces its corporate social responsibility.