Director Capture

Jonathan Macey is Deputy Dean and Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law at Yale Law School. He is the author most recently of Corporate Governance: Promises Made, Promises Broken (Princeton University Press, 2008) available at http://www.amazon.com.

The Icahn Report has exposed: (1) abuses in the use of golden parachute agreements; (2) many of the false premises behind the faulty assumption that corporate elections are “democratic” event that legitimize corporate boards; (3) the entrenchment effects of staggered boards of directors and, most importantly perhaps; (4) the sheer corruption of law and morality that is represented by the continued legality and adoption of poison pill defensive devices.

In my next two blog postings I would like to bring my own, admittedly academic perspective to two topics that are, I believe, highly relevant to the agenda of this blog. The first topic is the problem of “board capture” among boards of directors of public companies. The second is the general problem with shareholder democracy caused by defects in the shareholder voting process.

Director Capture

In the academic world, particularly among political scientists and economists, “capture” occurs when decision-makers such as corporate directors favor certain vested interests such as incumbent management, despite the fact that they purport to be acting in the best interests of some other group, i.e. the shareholders. The problem of capture and the theories associated with the idea of capture are most closely associated with George Stigler, and the free-market Chicago School of Economic thought. Among the more interesting and important theories of Stigler and other proponents of capture theory is the idea that capture is not only possible, in many contexts it is inevitable.

In my recent Princeton University Press book “Corporate Governance: Promises Made: Promises Broken” I apply capture theory, which is usually used to describe and model the behavior of bureaucrats in the public sector, to the directors of publicly traded companies who come to their positions through the board nominating committee.

In my view, such directors are highly susceptible to capture… even more susceptible than bureaucrats and politicians. Capture is inevitable because management controls the machinery of the corporate election process. Management’s narrow interest in having passive and supportive boards manifests itself in the appointment of docile directors who are likely to support management’s initiatives and unlikely to challenge management or to demand that managers earn their compensation by maximizing value for shareholders.

The extension of capture theory to corporate boards of directors is supported not only by foundational work in political science and economics but also by important work in social psychology. Directors participate in corporate decision-making. In doing so, these directors, as a psychological matter, come to view themselves in a very real way as the owners of the strategies and plans that the corporation pursues. And of course, these plans and strategies inevitably are proposed by incumbent management. Thus, directors inevitably risk simply becoming part of the management “team” instead of the vigorous outside monitors and evaluators that they are supposed to be. Management’s persistent support of and acquiescence in the proposals of management consistently renders directors incapable of objectively evaluating these strategies and plans later on. Of course this is not the case when the directors represent hedge funds or other large investors who have a large financial stake in making sure that the company prospers.

Another factor leading to board capture is the fact that boards of directors have conflicting jobs. They are supposed not only to monitor management, but also to select and evaluate the performance of top management. After top managers have been selected, the boards of directors making the selection decisions are highly likely to become committed to these managers. For this reason, as board tenure lengthens, it becomes increasingly less likely that boards will remain independent.

The theory of “escalating commitments” predicts that decision-makers such as corporate directors will come to identify strongly with management once they have endorsed the strategies and decisions made by management. Earlier board decisions supporting management, once made and defended, will affect future board decisions such that later decisions comport with earlier decisions. As the well-respected Cornell psychologist Thomas Gilovich has shown, “beliefs are like possessions” and “[w]hen someone challenges our beliefs, (for example the belief of directors that management is highly competent) it is as if someone [has] criticized our possessions.”

The cognitive bias that threatens boards of directors and other proximate monitors is a manifestation of what Daniel Kahneman and Dan Lovallo have described as the “inside view.” Like parents unable to view their children objectively or in a detached manner, directors tend to reject statistical reality (such as earnings performance or stock prices) and view their firms as above average even when they are not. The first step in dealing with the problem of board capture is to recognize that the problem exists.

Boards should be free to choose whether they wish to be trusted advisors of management or whether they want to be credible monitors of management. They can’t be both. We should stop pretending that they can.

One policy proposal would be for companies to have two boards of directors (as they do in Germany and the Netherlands), one for monitoring and one for assisting in the management of the company. Firms that decide to retain the single board format should be required to choose whether their board should devote itself to “monitoring” (or supervising) management or to advising (or managing along with) the company’s CEO and the rest of the management team. The farce that board can do both should end.

Boards that purport to monitor or supervise management should be held to an extremely high standard of independence. Management should not be involved in any way in the recruitment or retention of these board members. Socializing and gift-giving should be prohibited. And, of course, managers themselves should not be allowed to sit on monitoring boards. Managers should not be allowed to serve as the chairmen of monitoring boards.

Independence standards should be relaxed for the boards of companies that elect to participate in management. Decisions that involve a conflict between the interests of shareholders and the interests of management should be subjected to close scrutiny. Such decisions include decisions about executive compensation of all kinds, particularly bonus and severance payments, as well as decisions about such things as the adoption of staggered terms for the board or the adoption of a poison pill rights plan.

Shareholders of companies with management boards should have substantially more rights than shareholders of companies with independent boards. Shareholders of companies with management boards should be strictly prohibited from engaging in defensive tactics such as adopting poison pill anti-takeover devices. In addition, shareholders of management board-run companies should have enhanced voting rights. A majority vote of the shareholders should be required to approve executive compensation agreements in companies with non-independent, managerial boards, and directors of companies with managerial boards should be subject to ouster every year in the form of an annual no-confidence vote by the shareholders.

Finally, shareholders of companies that are run by managerial boards should be able to vote annually to require their companies to switch to an independent board. Well-run companies that prefer to operate with an insular managerial board can stay that way, but shareholders are entitled to a truly independent board if they want one.

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