Resources
We conduct original research on the causes of short-term business decisions and work to find practical solutions.
In the News
7 March 2019 - The numbers speak for themselves. Fewer than 15% of S&P 1500 companies refer to longer-term metrics—anything beyond 2 years—in their proxy statements. Globally, only 8.7% of companies in the MSCI All Country World Index issue guidance beyond one year. But these kinds of long-term plans are exactly what investors are clamoring for. Our own survey of institutional investment decision-makers found that 86% want companies to share targets at least three years out. And a survey from Rivel Research found 93% of global buy-side investors prefer targets...
In the News
15 February 2019 - A new paper by Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT) acknowledges that investors typically have competing time frames while most of the tools for risk and performance management are for only one investment period. The paper, Balancing Act: Managing risk across multiple time horizons, gives investors, from boards to investment personnel, much-needed practical tools and processes to address this issue successfully.
In the News
6 February 2019 - Sarah Williamson discusses focusing capital on the long term (16:00) with Amanda Lang of Bloomberg Markets. Co-anchored by Amanda Lang in Toronto and Shery Ahn in New York, Bloomberg Markets delivers the most important global business and breaking market news as it happens.
In the News
1 February 2019 - How about better multiple time-horizon investing? A recent paper* by Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT) injects a dose of self help into the long-horizon investing discussion. It recognises that few investors can focus solely on the long term, and shorter time horizons exist in parallel. Even large institutional investors can have collective behavioural biases around long-term investing. They may be subject to short-term pressures that make sticking to long-term decisions difficult.
In the News
30 January 2019 - From my backseat driver vantage point, Fink long ago saw the light regarding what ails society and the leaders who are at the helm of for-profit organizations. There is a blinding fixation on putting profits ahead of purpose. Indeed purpose seems to have been forgotten or worse ignored. Senior leaders—and arguably a for-profit organization’s board of directors—continue to operate with their head in the sand. Fink’s annual letter to CEOs points this out admirably.
In the News
25 January 2019 - Asset owners with a long-term time horizon are not immune to short-term pressures, according to a new publication from FCLT Global. The 30-page publication – ‘Balancing act: managing risk across multiple time horizons’ – addresses the challenge of managing multiple-horizon portfolios such as pension plans, sovereign wealth funds and endowments, by outlining why such management is important.
In the News
15 December 2018 - It was the G20 Investor Forum (the Forum), hosted by the World Bank and the Government of Argentina, held just before the start of the G20 Summit. For the first time ever, senior executives from the investment community in the private sector, holding over $20 trillion in assets under management, and senior officials from the public sector gathered to discuss how to better collaborate to ensure the capital markets earn the necessary long-term returns for their beneficiaries in a way that supports sustainable development. Comments...
In the News
10 December 2018 - The investor forum is a joint public-private sector initiative to foster sustainable development and try to right the wrongs of globalisation. At the G20 summit, some of the world’s most influential institutional investors, with collective assets under management of $20 trillion, travelled to Buenos Aires to discuss solutions with policymakers.
In the News
12 October 2018 - “That would allow greater flexibility & save money. I have asked the SEC to study!” he tweeted. Quarterly reporting seems like a good thing — transparency ensures informed decision-making by investors. And critics of Trump’s idea have cited concerns over a lack of transparency leading to increased investor risk. Yet in practice, quarterly reporting has evolved into a system of managing primarily for the quarterly numbers, with a net result of distorting financial performance negatively, much in the way teaching students solely to perform well on a...
In the News
1 October 2018 - To attract these investors, companies need to develop, communicate, and execute a long-term value-creating strategy. CFOs, finance organizations, and management accountants can play a pivotal role in helping companies refocus their strategic performance measures and deployment of resources toward greater long-term value creation.
In the News
9 September 2018 -