Investor Capitalism

A behind-the-scenes look at today's kingmakers: institutional investors. Out of the public eye, a small group of professionals--investment experts who handle other people's monies--are exerting ever-greater control over corporate managers, firing CEOs and pushing through 'restructurings' that cost thousands of jobs. Michael Useem's "Investor Capitalism" portrays the quiet, veiled nature of this dance of elephants, and portrays the enormous implications of its results. --John Rekenthaler, Publisher, Morningstar, Inc.

Your money can change the world The Impact Investor: Lessons in Leadership and Strategy for Collaborative Capitalism offers precise details on what, exactly, impact investing entails, embodied in the experiences and best and proven practices of some of the world's most successful impact investors, across asset classes, geographies and areas of impact. The book discusses the parameters of impact investing in unprecedented detail and clarity, providing both context and tools to those eager to engage in the generational shift in the way finance and business is being approached in the new era of Collaborative Capitalism. The book presents a simple thesis with clarity and conviction: "Impact investing can be done successfully. This is what success looks like, and this is what it requires." With much-needed lessons for practitioners, the authors view impact investing as a harbinger of a new, more "multilingual" (cross-sector), transparent, and accountable form of economic leadership. The Impact Investor: Lessons in Leadership and Strategy for Collaborative Capitalism serves as a resource for a variety of players in finance and business, including: Investors: It demonstrates not only the types of investments which can be profitable and impactful, but also details best practices that, with roots in impact investing, will increasingly play a role in undergirding the success of all investment strategies. Wealth advisors/financial services professionals: With unprecedented detail on the innovative structures and strategies of impact investing funds, the book provides guidance to financial institutions on how to incorporate these investments in client portfolios. Foundations: The book explores the many catalytic and innovative ways for for-profit and non-profit investors to partner, amplifying the potential social and environmental impacts of philanthropic spending and market-rate endowment investment. Business students: By including strategies for making sound impact investments based on detailed case studies, it provides concrete lessons and explores the skills required to enhance prospects for success as a finance and business professional. Policy makers: Reinforcing the urgency of creating a supportive and enabling environment for impact investing, the book demonstrates ways policy has already shaped the sector, and suggests new ways for policymakers to support it. Corporate leaders: The book includes essential advice on the way business is and must be responding to a new generation of Millennial clients and customers, with unique insights into a form of value creation that is inherently more collaborative and outcomes-driven.

The shift from managerial capitalism to investor capitalism, dominated by the finance industry and finance capital accumulation, is jointly caused by a variety of institutional, legal, political, and ideological changes, beginning with the 1970s’ downturn of the global economy. This book traces how the incorporation of businesses within the realm of the state leads to both certain benefits, characteristic of competitive capitalism, and to the emergence of new corporate governance problems emerges. Contrasting economic, legal, and managerial views of corporate governance practices in contemporary capitalism, the author examines how corporate governance has been understood and advocated differently during the New Deal era, the post-World War II economic boom, and the after 1980 in the era of free market advocacy.

Traces the rise of public and private pension funds, which now control as much as 50 percent of the equity in American corporations, and argues that shareholders in those funds could use their power to make corporations more responsive to social needs.

The founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual funds argues for a return to a governance structure in which owners' capital that has been put at risk is used in their interests rather than in the interests of corporate and financial managers.

Your money can change the world The Impact Investor: Lessons in Leadership and Strategy for Collaborative Capitalism offers precise details on what, exactly, impact investing entails, embodied in the experiences and best and proven practices of some of the world's most successful impact investors, across asset classes, geographies and areas of impact. The book discusses the parameters of impact investing in unprecedented detail and clarity, providing both context and tools to those eager to engage in the generational shift in the way finance and business is being approached in the new era of Collaborative Capitalism. The book presents a simple thesis with clarity and conviction: "Impact investing can be done successfully. This is what success looks like, and this is what it requires." With much-needed lessons for practitioners, the authors view impact investing as a harbinger of a new, more "multilingual" (cross-sector), transparent, and accountable form of economic leadership. The Impact Investor: Lessons in Leadership and Strategy for Collaborative Capitalism serves as a resource for a variety of players in finance and business, including: Investors: It demonstrates not only the types of investments which can be profitable and impactful, but also details best practices that, with roots in impact investing, will increasingly play a role in undergirding the success of all investment strategies. Wealth advisors/financial services professionals: With unprecedented detail on the innovative structures and strategies of impact investing funds, the book provides guidance to financial institutions on how to incorporate these investments in client portfolios. Foundations: The book explores the many catalytic and innovative ways for for-profit and non-profit investors to partner, amplifying the potential social and environmental impacts of philanthropic spending and market-rate endowment investment. Business students: By including strategies for making sound impact investments based on detailed case studies, it provides concrete lessons and explores the skills required to enhance prospects for success as a finance and business professional. Policy makers: Reinforcing the urgency of creating a supportive and enabling environment for impact investing, the book demonstrates ways policy has already shaped the sector, and suggests new ways for policymakers to support it. Corporate leaders: The book includes essential advice on the way business is and must be responding to a new generation of Millennial clients and customers, with unique insights into a form of value creation that is inherently more collaborative and outcomes-driven.

Thanks to the rise of mutual funds and retirement plans, the actual owners of the world’s corporate giants are no longer a few wealthy families. Rather, they’re the huge majority of working people who have their pensions and life savings invested in shares of today’s largest companies. These grassroots owners have ideas about value that differ from those of tycoons or Wall Street traders. And corporate directors and executives are coming under increasing pressure to respond. The New Capitalists provides examples—from GE to Disney to British Petroleum—of enterprises whose shareholders have recently wielded their control in ways unimaginable just several years ago. Authors Stephen Davis, Jon Lukomnik and David Pitt-Watson describe how civil ownership will profoundly alter our world—including forcing the rise of a new species of corporation. It has already begun demolishing old rules and habits, laying the groundwork for a new “constitution of commerce.” The authors spell out conventional thinking destined for extinction—and fresh strategies companies must implement to survive in the emerging “civil economy.” They also outline how investors, advisors, activists, and policy makers can make their voices heard.

Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.