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In the News
- FINANCIAL TIMES - (24 November 04) Sundeep
Tucker
Savings industry wakes up to need for radical change.
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- EVENING STANDARD - (24 November 04) Anthony
Hilton
Lack of return is the key.
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- FINANCIAL TIMES - (29 July 04) Sundeep
Tucker
Financial services
oath remains ‘on track’.
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- BBC RADIO 4 - 'NICE WORK' (27 July 04)
Mark Goyder
discusses the future of worker power.
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- Money Box, BBC Radio 4, 12 & Sunday around 9pm - (19 June 04) Mark Goyder
interviewed by Paul Lewis
Call for industry culture change.
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- Saturday Guardian - (19 June 04) Edmond Warner
Bullish Elephants will probably forget.
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- RESTORING TRUST PRESS RELEASE - 14
June 2004 - Embargoed until 09.30AM - 15 June 2004
A new report published today (June 15th) concludes
that the trust and confidence of investors has been damaged; calls
for an industry-wide culture change that puts the customer first;
and recommends changes in the way institutional investors fulfill
their ownership responsibilities. The report warns that the only
way for the UK investment system to deliver better value to its
customers is for concerted and collective action by the industry
itself, starting with a high level statement of what it stands
for.
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Download Sir Richard Sykes Speech
Download Endorsements
Download Biographies of Inquiry
- SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - Sykes wants 'Hippocratic oath' for investment
sector, 13 June 2004
An independent inquiry led by Sir Richard Sykes, the
former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, will this week call on the
investment industry to sign up to a new code of conduct in a bid
to restore public trust.
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- DIRECTOR MAGAZINE - (June 2004) Mark Goyder, Director of the
Month Interview
Interview with Mark Goyder, Director, Tomorrow's Company
and Director of the Month.
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Archived Articles
- FINANCIAL TIMES - November
17th, 2003, The costly art of selling...
The statistic of the month from Ned Cazalet, the independent
analyst who persists in talking sense about life assurance. The
UK life sector's spending on overall administration and new business
acquisition in 2002 was, he says, a staggering £12b....
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- CANTOS
TV - July, Ken Lever, Finance Director, TOMKINS plc Interview
I think the trend towards additional work and time
being spent in this area is something that has been going on for
some time. If you look back over, say 20 years, and think about
the size of an annual report 20 years ago and compare them today,
it is a very different document. But the recent developments which
I think have added significantly (probably to the onus of the
finance function rather than necessarily just the finance director)
are things associated with corporate governance and regulation
and the increase in complexity of accounting. ...
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- FINANCIAL
TIMES - May 6th, Generating ideas out of adversity
In his 2001 review of UK institutional investing, Paul
Myners wrote: "I regard our strong funded pensions system as a
key national asset." However, some fault lines have since been
exposed and the Sykes Committee remit to design a better investment
system could not have come at a better time.... Download document
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- FINANCIAL
TIMES - April 28th, Helping investment systems take to
the skies
Very few people would argue that the current UK investment
system works highly effectively. I have had the chance to experience
its complexities as a saver and as chairman of pension trustees
for BAA. The stewardship role involves responsibility for the
savings of more than 10,000 employees: the total amount totalling
more than £1bn....
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- FINANCIAL
TIMES - April 14th, Defining the optimal investment system
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That old adage was
often heard on the lips of fund managers when Paul Myners, former
chairman of Gartmore, was preparing his government-commissioned
report on the UK's investment industry. Fund managers warned that
the government was "playing with fire" by tampering with an industry
that was recognised as a world-leader...
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- DIRECTOR
MAGAZINE - April Issue, Editorial
There was at least one group that was relieved by the
mid-March ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. As an invasion of Iraq
grew in certainty, the stockmarkets rose accordingly, buoyed on
the hope of a quick victory by US and UK troops. It's what one
economist has called the "relief rally", when an end to uncertainty
triggers a brief return of confidence on Wall Street and in the
City...
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- INVESTOR
RELATIONS MAGAZINE - April Issue, Emphasis on the...
A November 2001 booklet entitled Environmental Information
in the Mainstream Equity Sector informs us that 'if the capital
markets were to exercise preference for companies with superior
environmental performance, this would constitute a powerful mechanism
for environmental self-regulation in the market.' This is, of
course, a very big if, admits Mark Stoughton, project manager
of the faculty reporting project at the Tellus Institute, a non-profit
research and consulting organization focused on sustainability,
and one of the authors of the booklet. Nonetheless, with the rapid
growth of socially responsible investment (SRI) in recent years,
many investors are indeed placing greater emphasis on environmental
performance.
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- FINANCIAL
TIMES - April 7th, Letter to the Editor
Sir, Much as I welcome the Institute of Business Ethics'
evidence about the pay-off from ethical behaviour (report, April
3), there is a danger of oversimplifying the so-called business
case. Successful organisations are built on strong relationships,
especially those with customers, employees, communities and business
partners. Relationships depend on trust; and trust is generated
by consistent behaviour. Leaders lay the foundations for success
by defining and living the purpose, values and strategy of the
company; sound ethics is one by-product of this leadership.
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- SUNDAY
TELEGRAPH - March 16th, Sir Richard Sykes Interview
Poor, beleaguered savers have a champion at last. Mary
Fagan talks to the no-nonsense Yorkshireman leading the inquiry
into the UK investment business Sir Richard Sykes, the combative
former chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, has never been one
to mince his words. He has been outspoken in his defence of the
pharmaceuticals industry in which he made his career and in the
promotion of British science and technology.
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- THE TIMES - 'Inquiry
seeks to take investments into 21st Century', February 15,
2003
PROMINENT figures from industry, finance and education are to
draw up a blueprint for reform of the UK's "complex and inefficient"
investment business. Led by Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial
College and former chairman of pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline,
a 15-strong group of businesspeople and City investors will conduct
a nine-month inquiry under the auspices of Tomorrow's Company,
an independent think-tank.
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- THE GUARDIAN - 'No quick
fix for broken investment cycle', February 15, 2003
There can be no doubt that the investment system is broke. How
to fix it, that is the issue. The government and its authorities
have heaped inquiry upon inquiry, with little evidence of consequential
legislation. The financial industry has hunkered down in the hope
that these squalls will blow themselves out. As yet, there are
few signs of the necessary behavioural change.
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- FINANCIAL TIMES - 'Sykes
outburst widely deplored', February 14, 2003
Sir Richard Sykes, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, rocked
small shareholders last week when he said they should be barred
from company meetings, complaining that their questions were disruptive.
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- BBC Radio 4 - 'The Today
Show', February 14, 2003
Interview with Sir Richard Sykes.
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- IR Magazine - 'Tomorrow's
Company ready to roll', February 14, 2003
The 21st Century Investment Inquiry, a Tomorrow's Company-sponsored
investigation into the relationship between investment and wealth
creation, is gearing up and ready to go. The names of the 14 members
of the team, which will be chaired by Sir Richard Sykes, former
chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, will be announced tomorrow.
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- CANTOS TV - 'John Sunderland
Interview', February 14, 2003
Tomorrow's Company, a business led think-tank, has launched an
inquiry into the effectiveness of the UK's current investment
system and the problems and pressures it faces as a consequence
of the falling value of stock markets.
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- The Guardian - 'The
Don't-let-it-happen-here committee', February 14, 2003
Over here, an impressive team of business leaders and market professionals
launched a self-funded inquiry yesterday to decide whether (to
put it bluntly) the entire investment system needs to be torn
up and reconstructed.
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- Financial Times - 'Review
into investments', February 14, 2003
Sir Richard Sykes, former chairman of GlaxoSmithkline and rector
of Imperial College London, will today announce the launch of
an inquiry into the effectiveness of the UK investment system,
backed by some of the City's biggest business leaders.
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- Financial Times - 'Funds
call for 20-year masterplan', February 10, 2003
An international consortium of leading pension funds is to challenge
the fund management industry to come up with radical proposals
for a ground-breaking 20-year mandate or face the possibility
of losing control of vast amounts of retirement money.
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- Sunday Telegraph - 'AGM
Theatres and Blue Sky waffle', February 9, 2003
Proposals by Sir Richard Sykes, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithkline,
to exclude small shareholders from annual meetings, seem to reveal
an unpleasant side of the business elite.
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- Financial Mail on Sunday
- 'Shareholders need help, not just a bashing', February
9, 2003
Big Shareholders are 'pathetic'. Their failure to hold our major
companies to account is a 'sin'. And as for small shareholders:
they are simply disruptive wastes of time who do little more than
munch sandwiches and ask inane questions at annual meetings.
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- The Times - 'Sid's AGM
outing comes under fire from top table', February 8, 2003
THE privatisations of the 1980s introduced wide-eyed investors
to that curious ritual, the annual general meeting (AGM). They
turned up in their thousands to exercise their democratic right
to consume tea and biscuits before retiring to hear the chairman
reflect on the year's events.
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- The Times - 'Shareholders
should be inside the board', February 8, 2003
YET another inquiry has been set up into the relations between
investors, companies and wealth creation. Don't groan. This one,
sponsored by Tomorrow's Company, is to be led by Sir Richard Sykes,
former boss of Glaxo.
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- The Times - 'Still Room
at the top…', February 5, 2003
SIR RICHARD SYKES is not renowned for his high tolerance levels.
As chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, it must have been agonising for
him to have to endure the questioning of petulant shareholders
at the annual meeting. Now he wants his revenge.
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- Financial Times - 'Yikes
Sykes!', February 5, 2003
Sir Richard Sykes, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, is
not a man to mince words. In an interview with the FT published
yesterday he took issue with large investors for being pathetically
inactive and not attending annual meetings to grill managements.
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- BBC Radio 4 - 'The Today
Show', February 5, 2003
Interview with Mark Goyder, Director, Tomorrow's Company.
Send me radio transcript
- BBC Radio 5 Live - 'Wake
up to Money', February 5, 2003
Interview with Mark Goyder, Director, Tomorrow's Company.
Download transcript
- Legal Week - "Turbulent
Times", January 9, 2003
The
Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and
Commerce (RSA) initiated a major study of business in Britain
in the mid 1990s, gathering together many leading companies and
business thinkers under the banner of the Tomorrow’s Company Enquiry.
The results of this study were published and are having a profound
and growing influence on an increasing number of commercial organisations,
large and small.
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- Financial Times - Directors
who ask the right questions, December 19, 2002
Time must also be allowed for non-execs to understand the
company and to get to know the management below the board. Mark
Goyder of the Centre for Tomorrow's Company argues that directors
and auditors need to know the true culture of the company, rather
than the picture painted in the annual report.
Read article
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