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"Beale, Nicholas"
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Constructive Engagement
The relationships between investors, directors and companies have never been so vital, or so confusing. Gone are the days when being a non-executive director (NED) meant an agreeable lunch and when CEOs wanted them to meet investors 'over my dead body'. Even the most admired companies can be engulfed in scandal and the NEDs find themselves having to drive through fundamental changes. The corporate environment is full of pitfalls for unwary boards. And there are plenty of headline stories of directors who have failed to measure up. Equally, a high quality board which has the confidence of the investors is a major strategic asset: making better decisions, attracting better people and allowing bolder strategies to succeed with investor backing. Nicholas Beale uses research gathered from leading FTSE 100 chairmen, directors, non-executive directors and investors to explore their changing roles. What emerges is a fascinating and instructive picture of constructive engagement; an approach that sees these companies (and the people behind them), each in their own way, address the challenges that are at the heart of global capitalism, and that have lead to the Higgs Review, Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory attempts to address corporate mismanagement. From discussions with over 100 leading practitioners, detailed studies of three leading companies, three leading investors and an extended case study on investor engagement at Royal Dutch Shell, the author draws a series of ideas and guidance for all of the parties involved. Sadly this book has come too late for the directors and investors of those companies that have crashed and burned, but all others who are, or aspire to be, directors or significant investors in listed companies should read this book, learn the lessons it has to offer and start adopting them in the organization(s) with which you work and in the portfolios you develop. For more information visit www.conseng.net
eBook
Individual versus systemic risk and the Regulator's Dilemma
The global financial crisis of 2007–2009 exposed critical weaknesses in the financial system. Many proposals for financial reform address the need for systemic regulation—that is, regulation focused on the soundness of the whole financial system and not just that of individual institutions. In this paper, we study one particular problem faced by a systemic regulator: the tension between the distribution of assets that individual banks would like to hold and the distribution across banks that best supports system stability if greater weight is given to avoiding multiple bank failures. By diversifying its risks, a bank lowers its own probability of failure. However, if many banks diversify their risks in similar ways, then the probability of multiple failures can increase. As more banks fail simultaneously, the economic disruption tends to increase disproportionately. We show that, in model systems, the expected systemic cost of multiple failures can be largely explained by two global parameters of risk exposure and diversity, which can be assessed in terms of the risk exposures of individual actors. This observation hints at the possibility of regulatory intervention to promote systemic stability by incentivizing a more diverse diversification among banks. Such intervention offers the prospect of an additional lever in the armory of regulators, potentially allowing some combination of improved system stability and reduced need for additional capital.
Journal Article
THE GROBIN DAVIS SITE: ARCHAEOGEOPHYSICS AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AT CADDO MOUND CENTERS IN SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA
The Grobin Davis site (34MC253) is the best-preserved known prehistoric Caddo mound site in southeastern Oklahoma. The site, located along the Little River, consists of seven mounds arranged in a horseshoe configuration. Archaeological excavations at the site have been limited to a series of posthole tests and three 1-x-1-m units. Between November 2011 and February 2012, the Oklahoma Archeological Survey conducted geophysical survey of the bulk of the site, covering approximately 32,000 m
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with a fluxgate gradiometer. This study provides important information about Caddo mound construction, settlement, and ceremonialism in southeastern Oklahoma and add to a growing body of literature on prehistoric Caddo community patterns.
Journal Article
Constructive Engagement
The relationships between investors, directors and companies have never been so vital, or so confusing. Nicholas Beale uses research gathered from some of the most well-known FTSE 100 companies to explore the roles and relationships of chairmen, executive
Book
FREEWILL, FREE PROCESS, AND LOVE
Of all the philosophical challenges to theism in general and Christianity in particular, the one that Christians take most seriously is the Problem of Evil. It is clearly not logically contradictory to hold that there exists a Loving Ultimate Creator; and nevertheless there is a very substantial amount of evil and suffering in the world. But it is certainly problematic. Deeper scientific understandings of physics and evolution shed some light on this. It is also useful to reflect more deeply on the relationships between love, suffering and creativity.
Journal Article
Quantifying how AI Panels improve precision
AI in applications like screening job applicants had become widespread, and may contribute to unemployment especially among the young. Biases in the AIs may become baked into the job selection process, but even in their absence, reliance on a single AI is problematic. In this paper we derive a simple formula to estimate, or at least place an upper bound on, the precision of such approaches for data resembling realistic CVs: \\(P(q) n^b + q(1-)1 + (n^b - 1)\\) where \\(b q^* + 0.8 (1 - )\\) and \\(q^*\\) is \\(q\\) clipped to \\([0.07, 0.22]\\) where \\(P(q)\\) is the precision of the top \\(q\\) quantile selected by a panel of \\(n\\) AIs and \\(\\) is their average pairwise correlation. This equation provides a basis for considering how many AIs should be used in a Panel, depending on the importance of the decision. A quantitative discussion of the merits of using a diverse panel of AIs to support decision-making in such areas will move away from dangerous reliance on single AI systems and encourage a balanced assessment of the extent to which diversity needs to be built into the AI parts of the socioeconomic systems that are so important for our future.
Paper
Vodafone
In the early 1980s the UK Government decided to introduce a nationwide mobile phone service. Being ideologically committed to competition and private sector, it decided that two licences should be awarded. The head of Racal's radio division, Gerry Whent, established Racal's telecoms division in Newbury with fewer than 50 employees, and first call on the Vodafone network was made on 1 January 1985. As 1998 turned to 1999 Lord MacLaurin and Chris Gent were watching England play Australia when Scott Mead, their investment banker from Goldman Sachs, rang on their mobile phone. Sam Ginn, Chairman of AirTouch, briefly became Chairman of Vodafone, with Lord MacLaurin stepping aside to Deputy Chairman, resuming chairmanship 11 months later in 2000. The companies were widely perceived as having overpaid, although Vodafone has steadfastly refused to write down the cost of their UK 3G licence, with the result that it had stated net assets substantially in excess of its market capitalization for much of 2001-2004.
Book Chapter
Someone of Sound Mind
The former directors of Equitable Life, a well-respected mutual insurer that effectively collapsed in 2001 due to unsustainable guarantees offered to certain investors, were sued for over £1 bn by the company for negligence. There is an element of prestige in being invited to join the Board of a well-known company, and this is one factor in bringing people on as the non-executive directors (NEDs). Career Development can be divided into two categories: those executives who are not yet on their Main Boards, and those who are (but are not yet group CEO). People below the Main Board of their employers are an excellent and somewhat untapped source of the independent non-executive directors (INEDs). By encouraging such people, with the support of their own Chairman and line management, to serve as NEDs we can hope to remedy the shortage of business-competent NEDs. Service as an INED also gives a fundamentally different focus from service as an executive.
Book Chapter
Tate & Lyle
In 1855 Henry Tate was a successful businessman, with a chain of six shops in the Liverpool area. Not content with buying refined sugar, he formed a partnership with a sugar refiner operating in Liverpool, and when that partnership came to an end, he formed Henry Tate & Sons, building refineries in Liverpool (1872) and in London (1878), specializing in cube sugar. Both businesses experienced difficult times, as sugar cane importers faced new competition from European sugar beet. However, the First World War destroyed many beet growing areas, and demand for sugar cane rose once more. By this time, Tate and Abram Lyle were refining 50 per cent of the country's sugar between them. In addition to building a global presence, Tate & Lyle were committed to research and development (R&D). In 1975 they were working with researchers at Queen Elizabeth College, part of the University of London, searching for ways to use sucrose as a chemical intermediate.
Book Chapter