Business Roundtable Asserts Corporate Governance is Getting Better

The Business Roundtable, based on responses of 105 of 160 members (all business executives) surveyed, proclaimed that American business has greater transparency, more independent boards, a larger degree of director evaluation and upgraded shareholder communication. Survey support for some of these assertions include: 45% of those surveyed said that director evaluations were in place (and 90% had established qualifications for directors); 57% (for the first time, over half) based management pay on performance and 91% had an independent chair , lead director or presiding director for the board of directors. The Roundtable had good news on the SOX compliance front: less than half expected 2006 SOX compliance cost to exceed $10 million and a massive majority (94%) expected no compliance cost increase--in fact, a bare majority expected a decrease in compliance cost.

I sincerely hope that the Roundtable is correct, that improved communications with shareholders is on the rise and that management of large businesses is improving. Having said that, I do not expect Michelle Leder (Footnoted blog) to run out of material soon.