Quality Shareholders
How the Best Managers Attract and Keep Them
Columbia Business School Publishing
Quality Shareholders
How the Best Managers Attract and Keep Them
Columbia Business School Publishing
Anyone can buy stock in a public company, but not all shareholders are equally committed to a company’s long-term success. In an increasingly fragmented financial world, shareholders’ attitudes toward the companies in which they invest vary widely, from time horizon to conviction. Faced with indexers, short-term traders, and activists, it is more important than ever for businesses to ensure that their shareholders are dedicated to their missions. Today’s companies need “quality shareholders,” as Warren Buffett called those who “load up and stick around,” or buy large stakes and hold for long periods.
Lawrence A. Cunningham offers an expert guide to the benefits of attracting and keeping quality shareholders. He demonstrates that a high density of dedicated long-term shareholders results in numerous comparative and competitive advantages for companies and their managers, including a longer runway to execute business strategy and a loyal cohort against adversity. Cunningham explores dozens of corporate practices and policies—such as rational capital allocation, long-term performance metrics, and a shareholder orientation—that can help shape the shareholder base and bring in committed owners. Focusing on the benefits for corporations and their investors, he reveals what draws quality shareholders to certain companies and what it means to have them in an investor base. This book is vital reading for investors, executives, and directors seeking to understand and attract the kind of shareholders that their companies need.
Lawrence A. Cunningham offers an expert guide to the benefits of attracting and keeping quality shareholders. He demonstrates that a high density of dedicated long-term shareholders results in numerous comparative and competitive advantages for companies and their managers, including a longer runway to execute business strategy and a loyal cohort against adversity. Cunningham explores dozens of corporate practices and policies—such as rational capital allocation, long-term performance metrics, and a shareholder orientation—that can help shape the shareholder base and bring in committed owners. Focusing on the benefits for corporations and their investors, he reveals what draws quality shareholders to certain companies and what it means to have them in an investor base. This book is vital reading for investors, executives, and directors seeking to understand and attract the kind of shareholders that their companies need.
This book asks readers to reflect on important questions: What is a quality shareholder, and are you acting as one in the stock market? By following Cunningham’s prescriptions, companies can attract such investors and improve economic returns, and individuals have a roadmap to become quality shareholders and improve their investment results. This is a worthy goal, one that should be broadly shared. Robert G. Hagstrom, author of The Warren Buffett Way
Cunningham has written a highly engaging, eminently readable book on an important but as-yet-unheralded shareholder cohort, the quality shareholders. Quality shareholders—engaged, long-term investors who can provide management with a sounding board and constructive criticism—may be the solution to rising transience and short-termism pervading markets. Cunningham describes how managers who run their companies to attract quality shareholders and investors who strive to exhibit those qualities contribute to the common good. Tobias Carlisle, author of Deep Value and The Acquirer's Multiple
Quality Shareholders highlights the close correlation between patient long-term investors and companies focusing on long-term strategies and profits. Its numerous examples of successfully run corporations with such dedicated shareholders will be of interest to individual and institutional investors alike. David Kass, University of Maryland, writer of the Warren Buffett Blog
This amply indexed book is an ideal resource for anyone considering a career (or already working) in investment management, investor relations, or managing a publicly traded firm. Choice
Prologue: The Shareholders Managers Deserve
Part I. Why Quality?
1. Meet the Quality Shareholders
2. Comparative Advantages
3. Competitive Advantages
Part II. Quality Engagement
4. The Corporate Message
5. Annual Letters
6. Annual Meetings
7. Quality Quarterly Contact
8. Useful Metrics
9. Capital Allocation
10. Trackers and Spins
Part III. Pivot Points
11. Director Selection: Stewards, Advocates, or Passivity?
12. Managerial Performance: The Overpaid and Underpaid
13. Shareholder Voting: One Each, Dual Class, or Quality?
Epilogue: Getting Indexers and Activists Going Quality
Appendixes
A. Research, Method, and Names
B. Selected Quality Shareholder Statements
Acknowledgments
Notes
Part I. Why Quality?
1. Meet the Quality Shareholders
2. Comparative Advantages
3. Competitive Advantages
Part II. Quality Engagement
4. The Corporate Message
5. Annual Letters
6. Annual Meetings
7. Quality Quarterly Contact
8. Useful Metrics
9. Capital Allocation
10. Trackers and Spins
Part III. Pivot Points
11. Director Selection: Stewards, Advocates, or Passivity?
12. Managerial Performance: The Overpaid and Underpaid
13. Shareholder Voting: One Each, Dual Class, or Quality?
Epilogue: Getting Indexers and Activists Going Quality
Appendixes
A. Research, Method, and Names
B. Selected Quality Shareholder Statements
Acknowledgments
Notes