Eric Jackson, an activist investor and hedge fund manager, charged Goldman’s board as being too cozy and too lacking in financial know-how to diligently oversee the top management. He claimed the board was packed with honchos who led companies that had paid large fees to Goldman. Allowing clients representation on a board is itself a structural conflict of interest because the client role is not in line with acting in the stockholders’ interest on the board. The hedge fund manager pointed to Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and former Fannie Mae chief James Johnson as cases in point. Related to the client orientation is an affinity to the management, whose managerial decisions bear on the clients. Indeed, Jackson noted that “these people seem to be favorably disposed to senior management’s way of thinking,” and are therefore unlikely to act as a check on CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his team.
The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon.
The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon.
