Aspen principles
The Aspen Principles is an initiative to reorganize corporate transparency and the capital market, by a working group associated with the Aspen Institute , which consists of corporate leaders, shareholders, unions, consultancy firms and investment funds and was published in June 2007. The aim of this proposal is to trigger a political reorganization process in the USA and countries with influential capital markets and to replace the short-term valuation of commercial enterprises. This is based on the idea that briefly focused indicators for corporate success lead to an incorrect assessment and rather a holistic picture of a company, its profits, structures and plans will provide positive impulses for the capital market as well as for improving corporate governance .
The principles
The proposal essentially contains the following 7 principles:
- Companies should no longer publish quarterly reports , but rather commit themselves to specific long-term goals and present their implementation
- Companies should not give out quarterly figures to analysts either , they will not comment on the assessments and ratings of analysts
- Companies will provide frequent, complete and regular information about their strategy and the extent to which it has achieved its objectives
- Management board remuneration is disclosed to investors with a long-term perspective
- Managers are required to hold shares in their own company beyond their service life
- Companies will reclaim money from managers and effectively collect money if their earnings were tied to specific results but these were proven to be incorrect or unsustainable
- Companies should aim for a medium-term planning and information horizon of around 5 years
Initiators
The initiators include u. a .:
- Apache Corporation
- Business Roundtable (BRT), a lobbying organization for boards of directors of US companies with total revenues of approximately USD 4.5 trillion and 10 million employees
- Council of Institutional Investors
- PepsiCo , Inc.
- Pfizer , Inc.
- Center for Audit Quality (Association of Auditors)
- New York State Common Retirement Fund
- Xerox Corporation
- William H. Donaldson , Donaldson Enterprises, Inc.
- Patrick W. Gross, The Lovell Group
- Yale School of Management
- Henry B. Schacht, Warburg Pincus