Executive Compensation: Insights for Investors
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’t have to manage them. – Jack Welch Catherine McCall and Damian Yu, both principals at Hugessen Consulting , provided a lively overview of issues in executive compensation to an afternoon audience at the CFA Society Toronto offices on August 20, 2012. The duo first outlined the current governance and market environment of compensation, then gave helpful pointers for deciphering management information, and concluded with “hot topics” in the area. Executive compensation deserves the attention […]
Reality vs Expectations: What Risk Managers Can Learn from the NFL
Arriving a little late at the CFA Society Toronto luncheon on June 4, 2012 at the National Club on Bay Street, I had a lucky choice of seat at the “hodge podge” table near the back. My two nearest neighbours at the table had driven from Simcoe to Toronto that morning (a minimum two-hour trip) for the express purpose of meeting the featured speaker, Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School of Management. One said he had not only read and enjoyed Martin’s latest book, Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL, he had also […]
Miriam Varadi Talks about Private Equity Firms in Canada
“A private equity firm breaks itself down into finders, minders, and grinders,” said Miriam Varadi at the April 26, 2012 seminar, “Private Equity: The Colour And The Controversy” held at the new Adelaide Street offices of the CFA Toronto Society. The “finders” look for quality buyout deals, the “minders” deal with the executives and sit on the board of the bought-out companies, and the “grinders” are, in her words, “essentially apprentice minders.” In 2006, Varadi found herself caught up in a dramatic scramble of the $52 billion buyout of Bell Canada Enterprise (BCE). BCE had been mismanaged for years which was […]

