Robert Swannell: the Gordon Brown of the Corporate World?

Stuart Rose is to step down as chairman of Marks and Spencer several months earlier than planned, the retailer recently announced, and will be replaced by current HMV chair, Robert Swannell.

There are expected to be complaints from M&S’s army of loyal small shareholders, most of who appear to be charmed by Rose. The charismatic figure’s bravura AGM performances, where he delivers sparkling discourses on anything from lingerie to luggage, have earned him popularity with many during his two years of leadership, and the executive chairman is “adored” by the small shareholders according to retail analyst Neil Saunders.

Incoming Swannell, meanwhile, is not necessarily the first name that comes to mind for chairman of Marks and Spencer. Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman believes that Swannell will not be as “high profile” as his predecessor. Saunders likewise commented, “he’s not as big a personality as Sir Stuart,” adding that the veteran investment banker has “a very tough act to follow.”

This has to raise the question, what exactly is the ‘act’ that we demand of any chairman? There are few statutory requirements for the role but the seminal 1992 Cadbury Report takes the view that:

Chairmen are primarily responsible for the working of the board, for its balance of membership ... for ensuring that all relevant issues are on the agenda, and for ensuring that all directors, executive and non-executive alike, are enabled and encouraged to play their full part in its activities ... Chairmen should be able to stand sufficiently well back from the day-to-day running of the business to ensure that their boards are in full control of the company’s affairs and alert to their obligations to shareholders (provision 4.7)

Though we talk of the chairman of the company, his or her role is actually to lead the board of directors. Through effective leadership, the chairman fosters an environment for establishing effective strategies to protect the company and move it forward. And for this, Swannell is well qualified.

Swannell has been an investment banker since joining Schroders in 1977 where he stayed through the takeover by US bank Citigroup in 2000. It was Citigroup that defended M&S against the Green takeover six years ago. Currently, Swannell holds non-executive posts on the boards of British Land and 3i Group as well as chairing FTSE 250 company HMV.

Perhaps it is rash to rain down with pessimistic predictions on the newcomer. Perhaps Swannell isn’t doomed to Brown’s demise simply for his lack of charisma, and, in the role of chairman, expressiveness can be replaced by experience and knowledge shown to outlive novelty.

Unlocking the Code: What do the changes mean for you? Continued...

Here we consider another of the changes appearing the new UK Corporate Governance Code.

Risk Management and Internal Control

A new, clearer statement of a board’s responsibility relating to risk is laid out in Main Principle C.2:

The board is responsible for determining the nature and extent of the significant risks it is willing to take in achieving its strategic objectives. The board should maintain sound risk management and internal control systems.

This idea is expounded in provision C.1.2 which states:

The directors should include in the annual report an evaluation of the basis on which the company generates or preserves value over the longer term (the business model) and the strategy for delivering the objectives of the company.

In other words, by setting out in layman’s terms the company’s strategy for generating long term value, a company can illustrate to investors, and other readers of the report, how the board has applied the new principle on risk.

The Code’s publishers, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have stated that it was not their intention to “promote particular methodologies for dealing with risk”; boards must merely recognise that it is their responsibility to consider how much risk the company can bear and how willing it should be to take risk on.

It makes sense to include this description in the same part of the annual report as the Business Review. This will not require a major change in reporting practices for most companies. Those that are properly applying the Accounting Standards Board’s voluntary Reporting Statement on the Operating and Financial Review will already be providing this information. See the Reporting Statement for detailed guidance on how this provision can be complied with.

Unlocking the Code: What do the changes mean for you? Continued...

This blog continues to consider the impact of the changes contained in the new UK Corporate Governance Code.

Time Commitment

No minimum time commitment for directors is prescribed by the Code, but the new Main Principle B.3 states:

All directors should be able to allocate sufficient time to the company to discharge their responsibilities effectively

Individuals who are non-executives in one company will often be executive directors in another – and vice versa. It is generally thought to be a good thing that an executive gets experience of the workings of another company and another industry.

However, it is important that the demands on the individual are realistic – the Code says that the board should not agree to a full-time executive taking on more than one FTSE 100 company non-executive directorship or the chairmanship of such a company.

A more encompassing guideline is that board members should limit their board memberships consistent with their ability to discharge their responsibilities diligently. More than three to four directorships could be burdensome, and may result in absences at board meetings and a lack of ability and willingness to act quickly in a crisis.

Worth noting on the topic of time commitment, is this comment by Ed Marks, President of Marks Consulting Inc.:

A director’s role in a troubled company is very different from that of a director of a healthy business. The increased emphasis on directors assuming larger roles in managing a company’s affairs means that their responsibilities and time commitments must also increase. Troubled companies require deeper involvement from their boards

Also bear in mind: risks of incurring director liability may rise when the number of board memberships increase beyond a manageable level.

The issue of time commitment links to the new emphasis placed on performance evaluation in the 2010 Code. Part of the appraisal of individual directors should ask the question, are they giving the job the time it requires?

Unlocking the Code: What do the changes mean for you?

The UK Corporate Governance Code, in effect from 29^th June this year, replaced the previous Combined Code. It applies to all companies with a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange regardless of where the company is incorporated. Over the next few blogs, I’ll look at some of the major changes contained in the latest revision and what they might mean, practically, for any particular company, starting with:

Diversity on the Board

The new Code makes explicit for the first time the need for gender equality, and diversity generally, to be taken into account in hiring decisions. Provision B.2 Supporting Principle states:

The search for board candidates should be conducted, and appointments made, on merit, against objective criteria and with due regard for the benefits of diversity on the board, including gender.

Responses to this addition have been plentiful and various. Regardless of whether you believe this advice should or should not have appeared in the Code, the fact remains that, at present, only 10% of directors in Britain’s top 100 companies are women, and 25 of these top firms have no women board members at all: shareholders and other readers of the Code are going to ask questions of under representative boards.

Because the new requirement is phrased as a principle, not a provision, companies will not be forced to explain publicly the absence of women directors. This is not tantamount to a get-out or loophole; instead, it means that companies have the time to work on building a diverse board membership. There is no pressure to appoint new directors purely for their contribution to gender or ethnic diversity (as the IOD pessimistically predicts: http://www.continuitycentral.com/news05179.html).

Boards skewed towards the white, British male should take action now to amend their nomination committees’ processes. Descriptions of the role and capabilities required for a particular appointment should be carefully prepared, open advertising employed and/or an external search consultancy engaged in the recruitment process. If these behaviours become established and well-used, diversity will be a natural outcome. Take care of your nomination procedures and board diversity will take care of itself.