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Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly USD 70 billion Microsoft has announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a USD 68.7 billion all-cash transaction. The deal, which is pending approval from regulators and Activision Blizzard shareholders, is expected to be completed in FY2023. The deal will turn Microsoft, which has recently acquired a string of increasingly sizeable video game producers, into the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue.

Toshiba investor requests shareholder vote on separation plan Singapore-based 3D Investment Partners (“3D”), Toshiba’s second-largest investor, has requested that the firm hold an EGM for shareholders to vote on its three-way separation plan originally announced in November 2021. 3D intends to vote against the proposal, but nevertheless wishes for this legally required vote to take place before additional plan- related expenses are incurred.

Alphabet increases executive remuneration Alphabet is to raise the base salaries of four of its top executives, soon after informing employees that there would not be a company-wide salary adjustment to match rising inflation. Four top executives, CFO Ruth Porat, SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler, and Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker, will have their annual salaries increased from USD 650,000 to USD 1 million.

As we enter 2022, it struck me that VUCA--a concept that originated in the mid-1980s at the U.S. Army War College to describe the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world after the Cold War—is still a useful framework to think of where we are now.

Vivendi moves towards full control of Lagardère Vivendi has announced that it is acquiring activist investor Amber Capital’s 17.5% stake in French media and retail group Lagardère, at a price of EUR 24.10 per share. The transaction will result in Vivendi owning 45.1% of Lagardère, triggering a full bid for the company due to the 30% mandatory bid threshold having been breached. Accordingly, Vivendi plans to make an offer of EUR 24.10 per share for Lagardère’s remaining stake by February 2022. The deal marks the latest chapter in a multiyear dispute over Lagardère’s control and governance. Vivendi, today Lagardère’s largest shareholder, started building its stake in April 2020, as Lagardère’s managing partner Arnaud Lagardère clashed with Amber over the company’s governance structure. At the time, Lagardère was a French “partnership limited by shares,” which allowed Arnaud Lagardère to retain control despite only holding around 7% of capital. While Vivendi initially supported Arnaud Lagardère’s attempt to fend off a proxy contest from Amber at the 2020 AGM, it later joined Amber in requesting board representation. In April 2021, Arnaud Lagardère bowed to shareholder pressure by agreeing to convert Lagardère into a joint stock company.

Michael Jantzi is one of the giants of sustainable investing. He is the founder and long-time CEO of Sustainalytics, which was recently sold to Morningstar, and where he now focuses on the big picture as managing director for ESG strategy.

Vivendi moves towards full control of Lagardère Vivendi has announced that it is acquiring activist investor Amber Capital’s 17.5% stake in French media and retail group Lagardère, at a price of EUR 24.10 per share. The transaction will result in Vivendi owning 45.1% of Lagardère, triggering a full bid for the company due to the 30% mandatory bid threshold having been breached. Accordingly, Vivendi plans to make an offer of EUR 24.10 per share for Lagardère’s remaining stake by February 2022. The deal marks the latest chapter in a multiyear dispute over Lagardère’s control and governance. Vivendi, today Lagardère’s largest shareholder, started building its stake in April 2020, as Lagardère’s managing partner Arnaud Lagardère clashed with Amber over the company’s governance structure. At the time, Lagardère was a French “partnership limited by shares,” which allowed Arnaud Lagardère to retain control despite only holding around 7% of capital. While Vivendi initially supported Arnaud Lagardère’s attempt to fend off a proxy contest from Amber at the 2020 AGM, it later joined Amber in requesting board representation. In April 2021, Arnaud Lagardère bowed to shareholder pressure by agreeing to convert Lagardère into a joint stock company.

Didi to move listing from New York to Hong Kong Didi Global will delist its American depository shares (“ADSs”) from the NYSE and pursue a listing on the Main Board of the HKEX, less than six months after its USD 4.4 billion U.S. IPO in June 2021. Didi’s decision comes as Chinese authorities finalize a cybersecurity probe into the company amid Beijing’s increased scrutiny of foreign-listed Chinese companies. In July, the investigation had led to a 20% drop in the ride-hailing giant’s market value. This in turn prompted two class-action lawsuits from investors alleging that Didi had failed to disclose Chinese regulatory calls for it to delay its IPO until after the conclusion of the cybersecurity review. Didi indicated that it will hold a shareholder meeting to approve the move and arrange for its ADSs to be convertible into freely tradable company shares on another global exchange of ADS holders’ choosing. With the delisting, Didi joins a growing exodus of Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges. Last week, the SEC finalized rules allowing it to forcibly delist those foreign companies that have failed to comply with U.S. regulatory audits for three consecutive years.

In the weeks following COP26, investors in the UK and worldwide face a myriad of upcoming climate-related regulations heading towards the implementation phase. In addition, major global coalitions such as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero have sprung up to attempt to accelerate decarbonization via targeted investment.

Activision Blizzard CEO considers departure Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has reportedly signaled his potential resignation in case the company’s sexual harassment and cultural issues are not resolved with sufficient haste. Recently, around 1,330 employees petitioned Kotick to resign following media allegations that he had ignored and failed to disclose sexual harassment and gender discrimination complaints from female employees. Additionally, a group of shareholders has called for the CEO’s resignation, the retirement of the Chairman and the Lead Independent Director, and the nomination of a non-executive Activision Blizzard employee to the board. In response, the company announced that it had formed a fully independent “Workplace Responsibility Committee” tasked with overseeing the company’s progress on workplace culture improvement, adding that it “is working” on adding a “new, diverse” director. The controversy around Activision Blizzard emerged in July 2021, when the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing announced that a two-year investigation had revealed sexual harassment and discrimination practices at the company.

Toshiba prepares three-way split Toshiba has announced plans to split into three freestanding businesses, respectively focusing on 1. energy and infrastructure, 2. hard disk drives and power semiconductors, and 3. Toshiba’s current stake in Kioxia Holdings, Toshiba Tec Corp., and other assets. This plan is the result of a five-month review triggered by the resignation of former CEO Nobuki Kurumatani in April 2021. This resignation came a week after the company declined a USD 21 billion takeover offer by CVC Capital Partners and two months before a shareholder-commissioned investigation concluded that management had colluded with Japanese government officials to curb oversees shareholders’ influence at the 2020 AGM. The review had also considered the possibility of going private, although discussions to this end with private equity funds ultimately failed to bear fruit. An extraordinary meeting to approve the split is scheduled for March 2022, with the split expected to be finalized by March 2024. However, initial media reports suggest that the plan could face some degree of investor opposition when put to vote.

Hear from our expert panel on how to maximize ESG impact from Fixed Income Engagement.

Boeing settles lawsuit over 737 MAX safety Boeing’s board has agreed to a USD 237.5 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by major investors over the board's safety oversight of the 737 MAX aircraft. Investors claimed that the board members “failed in their fiduciary responsibility” to protect the company and its stakeholders. Two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people and have cost the company around USD 20 billion. In September 2021, a Delaware court ruled that investors could bring claims against the board, as the directors ignored the first crash as “a red flag.” Nevertheless, the settlement is not expected to include admission of board wrongdoing, and the financial penalty will be paid by insurers. Going forward, Boeing will be required to adopt several measures to enhance its governance and oversight. Under the settlement, the company must appoint an additional director with safety oversight or aviation/aerospace expertise within one year, while ensuring that at least three directors have similar expertise. Additionally, the company must amend its bylaws to separate the CEO and Chairman positions and set up an ombudsperson program in charge of internal complaints from employees on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration. Softbank announces USD 8.8 billion buyback program SoftBank has announced the repurchase of circa 15% of its own shares, estimated at JPY 1 trillion (USD 8.8 billion). CEO and founder Masayoshi Son states that the board approved the buyback in response to the firm’s estimated trading discount of 52%. The company also announced significant quarterly losses, mainly due to the poor performance of its Vision Fund, whose Chinese investments have suffered from regulatory pressure and a share price decline. Following the announcement, the company’s share price increased by more than 10%, after it lost 40% of its peak value from May 2021 when a JPY 2.5 trillion buyback program was completed. Reuters | Yahoo | City A.M. The Williams Cos. loses appeal on blocked poison pill plan The Delaware Supreme Court has upheld a February 2021 lower court ruling barring the continuation of the poison pill adopted by the Williams Cos. in March 2020. Earlier this year, the company appealed the initial decision of the Delaware Chancery Court that blocked the company’s plan on basis that it included “extreme” measures, most notably a 5% ownership trigger. In 2020, amid the beginning of the Covid pandemic and an oil price war that caused the company’s share price to plummet, the company’s board enforced a poison pill which was contested by shareholders and used as grounds for a shareholder lawsuit against the company and its board. Reuters | Bloomberg | Delaware Court Copyright ©2021 Sustainalytics. All rights reserved Reuters | WSJ | Market Watch | Seattle Times

SEC publishes new guidance on shareholder proposal exclusions SEC publishes new guidance on shareholder proposal exclusions The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has published new guidance that will make it more difficult for companies to block ESG-related shareholder proposals from being included on proxy ballots. Under the previous guidance, corporations were able to exclude proposals that dealt with matters relating to the company’s ordinary operations unless they raised significant social policy issues for the company. Additionally, proposals related to operations accounting for less than 5% of the company’s assets and earnings were subject to exclusion. Under the revised guidance, the previous company-specific approach would be replaced by a broader societal impact analysis. Specifically, proposals that the SEC previously deemed excludable due to their lack of a significant company-level policy issue will no longer be viewed as such if they have a broad societal impact. Additionally, proposals related to operations not meeting the economic thresholds should not be excluded provided they raise issues of broad social concern related to the company’s business. Moreover, companies will not be able to exclude climate-related resolutions if they require timeframes or targets “so long as the proposals afford discretion to management as to how to achieve such goals.”

Investors can examine to what extent petroleum refiners manage their Non-GHG Air Emissions and assess the quality of a company's programs to reduce air pollutants. For instance, examining all the petroleum refiners assessed by Sustainalytics, we observe that only 3% have a strong program to manage non-greenhouse gas emissions.

Volvo Cars shares jumped as much as 22% in the first day of their trading on Nasdaq Stockholm as the company raised SEK 20 billion (USD 2.3 billion) in an IPO which valued the company at SEK 158 billion. The successful debut came after Volvo Cars cut the size of the offering by a fifth and priced it at the bottom of the initial range, in response to investors’ concerns over how much control China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (“Geely”) would retain. Moreover, Geely agreed to convert its common shares of class A, carrying 10 votes per share, into a corresponding number of common class B shares, which are entitled to one vote per share. Prior to agreeing to convert the shares the enhanced voting rights would have given Geely 98% voting power despite its stake in the company dropping to around 84%. Additionally, Geely decided not to exercise an upsize option that would have allowed it to increase the offering by 20%. The amended offering could result in a free float of 16% to 17.9% depending on whether an overallotment option is exercised. Volvo Cars shares closed at SEK 57.99 on November 2, up from the SEK 53 listing price.

Hong Kong’s Financial Reporting Council has launched an inquiry into Evergrande's accounts for 2020 and the first half of 2021, as well as an investigation into the audit of the firm’s 2020 accounts conducted by PwC. According to the regulator, as at the end of 2020 reported cash and cash equivalents amounted to RMB 159 billion, failing to cover the firm’s current liabilities of RMB 1,507 billion, in addition to the further borrowings of RMB 167 billion maturing in 2022.

According to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity the main drivers of biodiversity loss are habitat loss and degradation, climate change, pollution, over-exploitation, and invasive species. Habitat loss is directly linked to the conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural lands and unsustainable use of water resources.

The U.S. SEC has announced that it is reopening comments on a proposed rule that would claw back executive compensation in cases of financial restatement due to “material noncompliance.” The rule was initially proposed in 2015, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, but has yet to be finalized. The clawback would apply to incentive-based compensation awarded to current and former executives during the three fiscal years preceding the restatement “regardless of whether the misstatement was due to fraud, errors, or any other factor.” The recovered amount would equal the excess compensation relative to the amount to which executives would have been entitled based on the restated financial statements. The clawback provisions would apply to compensation that is granted, earned or vested upon the attainment of a financial reporting measure, including stock price and total shareholder return. Additionally, under SEC’s proposal, stock exchanges would have to establish listing standards requiring public companies to adopt and comply with clawback policies. Issuers would be subject to delisting in case they fail to disclose their policies and comply with their provisions. The SEC is seeking public input on the proposed rule for a period of 30 days.

A federal jury has ordered Tesla to pay USD 137 million to a contract worker over claims of workplace racism. Plaintiff Owen Diaz accused Tesla of creating a hostile work environment and failing to address racial abuse despite repeated complaints.