Bruce Sheppard: Gone, forgotten, but still here

By Paul McBeth

Thursday 29th July 2010

Outspoken critic of New Zealand corporate governance Bruce Sheppard summed up his decade-long tenure at the head of the Shareholders' Association as "gone, forgotten, but still here".

In his valedictory speech as chairman at the organisation's AGM, Sheppard revelled in some of his victories over the past 10 years, chief among them the backdown on options packages offered by some of the country's biggest companies to their executives.

"If owners' fundamental right is to own, it's anathema to allow boards to give away companies without your consent," he told 180 members in Auckland.

Sheppard is handing over the reins to John Hawkins, who outlined a new era for the association, which will continue to advocate shareholders' rights in a direct, if less colourful, manner.

Sheppard gave a brief history of how the organisation came to fruition after he challenged the board of Brierley Investments in 1998, which grew into his opposition to what he called "corporate leadership's greedy, grasping, self-serving boards" that went unchallenged.

Other victories included the end of a number of questionable practices by companies, such as boards' misuse of American depositary proxy votes, and parent company boards' setting directors' fees for subsidiary firms that they controlled.

The increased coverage of savings, investment and capital markets in the mainstream media was a good thing, Sheppard said, for which he claimed some credit as well.

"They're all just drips in the bucket" which have helped push capital markets "to the top of the political agenda for the first time in about 25 years," he said.

Sheppard has been appointed to the establishment board of the Financial Markets Authority, another victory he claimed, and will continue to sit on the executive of the Shareholders' Association, though he will not attend any meetings.

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