Preliminary results for JDW (JD Wetherspoon) are out today (http://is.gd/0bz8We). It is interesting to note their section on corporate governance, which I reproduce, in part, below.

“In my opinion, a strange paradox is that companies in the pub business which have complied least with governance guidelines seem to have fared the best. Family brewers like Fuller’s, Young’s and Shepherd Neame, which have often had a chairman who had previously been chief executive, a majority of executives on the board and non-executive directors who are either not ‘independent’ or have been on the board for more than the recommended time, have tended to do well, whereas the compliant boards of the large pub companies have struggled greatly, in many cases, in the last decade.

One reason may be that the non-compliant boards have been more resistant to the sometimes foolish ideas which take hold of financial markets. The main misconceived fashion of the last decade and a half has been in relation to so-called ‘efficient balance sheets’. This fashion encouraged excessively high levels of debt and arrangements such as ‘opco/propco’, which also increased financial gearing.”

“A related matter concerns the huge increase in the size and incomprehensibility of annual reports and accounts; this has been exacerbated by corporate governance reports. As has been well documented, remuneration committee reports, for example, are often extremely difficult to understand. Many corporate governance reports are full of business jargon and repetition. The financial reports themselves are often the worst offenders, frequently using obscure language and definitions. The net effect of this is that annual reports, which should be read by shareholders, have become extremely difficult to digest – and many people have given up. Wetherspoon has attempted, no doubt imperfectly, to reduce jargon and repetition in its report and accounts. “

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Already have an account?
Login here