corporate-governance 5

Google IPO. Their SEC registration is very readable – and gives a perspective on how corporate governance should be.

Very interesting article on Google on Wired. One interesting point the article raises towards the end is this: “As a private company, Google has one master: users. As a public company, there are shareholders to worry about.” And the interests of these may not be aligned. Shareholders may want more ad revenues. Users do not want ads. Shareholders may want paid placements. Users do not. Once Google IPOs, I suspect its quality will fall.

An interesting legal conundrum. When Nike was accused of running sweatshops in Asia, it responded with press releases and ads claiming that it did not. Marc Kasky filed a case saying that Nike was advertising unfairly, and won. Now corporates are raising the question of whether corporate statements are free speech, and can be similarly protected.

The STAR exchange is a stock exchange listing companies with good governance. That’s a good criterion to list by, given the accounting we read about. This exchange has managed to outperform the conventional counterpart (Borsa), BTW.

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