– The Financial Times (paywall) reported that GAM’s new board appointed Elmar Zumbuehl as CEO of the Swiss asset management firm after the previous board stepped down following the blocking by activist investors of a takeover bid by Liontrust. Zumbuehl has been the firm’s chief risk officer since 2017.
The new board, which was voted in by shareholders, includes Antoine Spillmann, CEO of Bruellan, part of the activist investor group, as chair. Other appointments include Fabien Pictet, founder of Fabien Pictet & Partners, and Carlos Esteve, founder of Banque Heritage. Anthony Maarek, a former partner at Deloitte, and Jeremy Smouha, a founding member of GAM, have also been appointed to the board.
Spillmann said he was ‘delighted’ that Zumbuehl has been appointed CEO. ‘[He] has the right blend of experience and operational expertise – as well as an in-depth knowledge of GAM – to lead the firm,’ he said.
– CNBC reported that S&P Global’s vice chair Dan Yergin said the transition toward renewable energy is an endeavor that requires not just the right technological capabilities, but also a large amount of capital. That means some fund managers are beginning to dial back on their ESG pledges, he said, noting that many renewables projects are being slowed down or paused. ‘If you’re in a money-management business, you do need returns,’ Yergin said. ‘And we’ve seen with more North American funds that, yes, we want to do energy transition, we want to do ESG. But we actually need returns as well. And that has shifted the attitude. There’s kind of more realism.’
In the second quarter of this year, investors have pulled $635 mn from US sustainable funds, according to Morningstar. There has been a total outflow of $11.4 bn from these sustainable funds in the past year.
– The FT reported that Siemens’ US president and CEO Barbara Humpton urged companies to promote to voters the benefits of the Biden administration’s industrial policy, warning that a change of government could threaten the tax breaks and subsidies needed to modernize the country’s economy. Humpton said measures including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has a $369 bn package in support of clean energy, should be a ‘non-partisan and transcendent issue’ and that it was in the interests of all Americans that those measures survive next year’s US elections.
‘We’ve got to get stories out to help paint the picture [for] voters,’ Humpton said. ‘So that whoever is sitting in the White House or whoever’s legislating on Capitol Hill knows the importance of this to American workers, to American families and, frankly, to our national security.’ Siemens, which counts the US government as its largest global customer, has moved some component manufacturing for the solar industry from Germany to the US as a result of the IRA.
– According to CNBC, the US Supreme Court was set to hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a case with the potential to diminish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The case – CFPB vs Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) – hangs on the constitutionality of the agency’s funding. If the court sides with the CFSA, its ruling could have broad and significant impacts for consumers, according to legal experts and consumer advocates.
For example, any rules the CFPB has issued over the past 12 years, in areas such as credit cards, mortgages, payday loans and debt collection, could be nullified, experts said. ‘[The CFPB’s] future is on the line before the court,’ wrote Better Markets, a consumer advocacy group.
– More than 75,000 nurses, pharmacists and other employees of the Kaiser Permanente health system launched the largest US healthcare strike in recent history, the Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported. The action came after contracts expired and employee unions could not reach an agreement with Kaiser on how much a new deal would increase wages and staffing.
Kaiser said it would bring in temporary workers to minimize the impact on patients, but would, if needed, postpone some appointments and expand its network to retail pharmacies and, for some people, non-Kaiser hospitals. ‘Our plans ensure that the urgent needs of our members and patients are the top priority,’ Kaiser said.
Through August this year, the US economy has lost more workdays to labor disputes than any full year since 2000.
– Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said companies can gain more lenient treatment if they report to prosecutors potential criminal misconduct uncovered during the M&A process, the WSJ reported. Under a new policy, an acquiring company that discloses potential wrongdoing at a company being acquired within six months of the deal-closing date – and fully co-operates and fixes the underlying problems within a year of closing – can presume it won’t be prosecuted by the US Department of Justice.
‘Our goal is simple: good companies – those that invest in strong compliance programs – will not be penalized for lawfully acquiring companies when they do their due diligence and discover and self-disclose misconduct,’ said Monaco. The policy would be implemented in all divisions of the department but would apply only to ‘criminal conduct discovered in bona fide, arm’s-length M&A transactions,’ she said, adding that the policy won’t affect civil merger enforcement.
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
