In a couple of years, the Chinese will be seen as regular participants in international industry. Their companies have to report to shareholders as well as to the Chinese authorities. They need to make money, they have to be efficient.

Companies do not commit crimes; only their agents do. And while a company might get the benefit of some such crimes, prosecuting the company would inevitably punish, directly or indirectly, the many employees and shareholders who were totally innocent.

The ultimate arbiters of the models of banking and the management of banking are the investors. It’s the shareholders.

When you start to get shareholders, clients, employees, rating agencies, and everybody converging, and then your competitors bad-mouth you, you know you did the right thing.

After watching Taro reach the brink of bankruptcy, seeing their shares delisted from trading, hearing endless false promises about receiving audited financial statements, and witnessing an unchecked drain of company resources, the shareholders have clearly had enough.

With less competition to fear, companies are emboldened to raise their mark-ups and profits. That lifts share prices and thus the wealth of already wealthy shareholders.

Shareholder value gets lost when things are done illegally, when corporate governance is not adhered to, when cohesive action is not taken.

Far too many executives have become more concerned with the ‘four P’s’ – pay, perks, power and prestige – rather than making profits for shareholders.

In Montana, no one, including out-of-state corporate executives, has been excluded from spending money – or ‘speaking‘ – in our elections. Any individual can contribute. All we require is that they use their own money, not corporate money that belongs to shareholders, and that they disclose who they are.

Whenever you look at any potential merger or acquisition, you look at the potential to create value for your shareholders.

Higher capital requirements increase bank costs, and at least some of those costs will be passed along to bank customers and shareholders. But in the longer term, stronger prudential requirements for large banking firms will produce more sustainable credit availability and economic growth.

I am always asking myself how I can improve the lives of my customers, my colleagues, my shareholders, my family and my friends.

I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.

Dhirubhai will go one day. But Reliance‘s employees and shareholders will keep it afloat. Reliance is now a concept in which the Ambanis have become irrelevant.

At a lot of companies founded on principles, the notion of making money is almost antithetical to the ethos of the place. From the very beginning, our business has existed to meet the needs and desires of multiple constituencies: customers, team members, vendors, shareholders, the community.

If you can’t use dividends, it’s not a bad thing to give it back to your shareholders. They’ll use it somewhere else.

Shareholders, of course, have every right to weigh in on whether (or how) they want a company to exercise political influence.

Everyone is now praying at the altar of every last dollar of profits to please shareholders. If you invest in your people and treat them well, it’s a different way to increase profits.

In our industry today only a strong company with a global reach can ensure long-term employment and provide acceptable returns for shareholders.

I liked being CEO of Blockbuster, but my job is to put it on the bottom line for shareholders.

Real teams are much more likely to flourish if leaders aim their sights on performance results that balance the needs of customers, employees, and shareholders.

If you’re long-term oriented, customer interests and shareholder interests are aligned.

I’m the C.E.O., nominated by the shareholders. If they’re not happy, I have to take the consequences.

I don’t feel I’m at liberty to speak about the actions of any one CEO. That’s not fair; given CEOs have duties to their shareholders.

Companies, to date, have often used the excuse that they are only beholden to their shareholders, but we need shareholders to think of themselves as stakeholders in the well being of society as well.

The World Bank is a shareholder-driven organisation, and as in all such organisations, the majority of shareholders would want a manager of their liking at the top.

DaimlerChrysler made significant progress in the year 2005, but our earnings are still not where we want them to be. We intend to grow profitably and to create added value over the long term – for the benefit of our customers, employees and shareholders.

I think there’s a lot we could do that maybe would give a little more decision space to CEOs, to shareholders who want to hold for the long term, to investors who want to be part of the long term, that they would maybe have a little more room to withstand the pressure that is otherwise coming down on them.

I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

The evidence seems clear that those business which actively serve their many constitutencies in creative, morally thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, infact, do well by doing good.

It’s an unbelievable responsibility to influence decisions, shareholder value and most important to me, people’s careers and livelihoods.

Shareholder activism is not a privilege – it is a right and a responsibility. When we invest in a company, we own part of that company and we are partly responsible for how that company progresses. If we believe there is something going wrong with the company, then we, as shareholders, must become active and vocal.

If you look at academic studies, you can see that stock prices are most closely correlated with cash flow. It’s such a straightforward number. Cash flow is what will drive shareholder returns.

It is very clear for us; we will do whatever is in the best interest of Shriram shareholders.

There is strong mentoring of women in the academy. Corporations appear more willing to resist affirmative action to advance women, and boards and shareholders are more tolerant of this approach.

Ultimately, each transnational firm strives for its own advantage, and is supported in that effort by the state power wherein it resides, or at least where its main shareholders are domiciled.

If you punish the banks, all you are doing is reducing the banks’ capital, which you want to increase, and punishing shareholders, who have done nothing wrong.

I’m committed to increasing long-term value for shareholders and am confident we will continue to do so through the successful execution of our core strategic priorities: the creation of high quality, branded content and experiences, the use of technology, and creating growth in numerous and exciting international markets.

Corporations are driving down wages and working conditions across the globe to maximize returns for their shareholders. They use their power and influence to ensure the rules align with their interests – no matter the cost.

I was always acting primarily with shareholder interests in mind.
It’s also true I’ve always had a fairly moralistic attitude to business, and would not do anything that I considered improper.
As a consequence, I have occasionally pursued issues during my career that other people might have avoided.

When you manage your company for long-term shareholders, and you manage the company for clients, two of the biggest stakeholders, you will make the right decisions.

Shareholders share in the downside and not necessarily in the upside; that’s the whole story.

The rewards of my life have been great. I built a company; I left things better than I found them. I have a good reputation. I put the Vanguard shareholders and crew first. That’s a huge thing.

The name ‘The Beach Boys’ is controlled by Brother Records Inc., which was founded by the original members of the Beach Boys and whose sole shareholders voted over a decade ago to grant me an exclusive license to tour as ‘The Beach Boys.’ With it, I’ve felt a great responsibility to uphold, honor and further our legacy.

Management has failed miserably at creating increased value for shareholders. Indeed, despite some recent short-term gains, which actually only put us back where we were eight years ago, they have been devaluing our assets, turning a unique institution into just another entertainment company.

… Our first priority should be the people who work for the companies, then the customers, then the shareholders. Because if the staff are motivated then the customers will be happy, and the shareholders will then benefit through the company’s success.

When management owns stock, then rewarding the shareholders becomes a first priority, whereas when management simply collects a paycheck, then increasing salaries becomes a first priority.

People invest in companies in order to get a share of the profit that company will make. If the Government increases its share of the profits, potential profits, at the expense of the owners of the company, the shareholders, then that makes investment in that company less attractive.

Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

I believe corporations that benefit from everything America has to offer should feel (ph) some sense of responsibility, not just to their biggest shareholders, but to their workers, to their customers, to their communities and, yes, to our country.

We’re all shareholders. These guys below me, they see the CEO taking it easy, it’s their money.

Our first use of cash is invested organically, secondly returning values our shareholders – roughly 100 percent free cash flow. And then thirdly, mergers, acquisitions, partnerships that complement our organic strategy. We are going to continue down that path.

The Bank had never used the word ‘corruption‘ at all until I got there, and the reason for that was, as the general counsel pointed out to me, that quite a number of our shareholders represented were not immune from corruption in their governments.

I really believe that all CEO pay should be voted on by shareholders ahead of time. Mine was.

I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world.

Money managers have to account for their actions to their shareholders, which means they have an undue fear of underperformance. We invest only our own money. Our investments are driven by optimism, not fear.

I mean the good thing about Marvel is that they’re really good about reading what they call the shareholders – the fans. Because they really are the keepers of what keeps these movies going, you know?

I think at least my philosophy of leadership is you focus more on the areas you have to improve or the mistakes than you do on your successes. And that’s just how I am in real life. I don’t want to let down my customers, my employees, my shareholders.

He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency.

Berkshire has the lowest turnover of any major company in the U.S.The Walton family owns more of Wal-Mart than Buffett owns of Berkshire, so it isn’t because of large holdings. It’s because we have a really unusual shareholder body that thinks of itself as owners and not holders of little pieces of paper.

Dodge v. Ford still stands for the legal principal that managers and directors have a legal duty to put the shareholders’ interests above all others and no legal authority to serve any other interests – what has come to be known as “the best interests of the corporation” principal.

As companies become bigger, the global environment more competitive, and the rate of disruptive technological innovation ever faster, the value to shareholders of attracting the best possible CEO increases correspondingly.

Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn’t have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top – as we always do.

Excessive pay and rewards for failure are bad for shareholders, the economy and society.

Just reskinning games with our intellectual property is not an appealing prospect for opportunity. That isn’t something that creates long-term value for shareholders.

The College Board is officially a non-profit. But all that means is that it doesn’t have shareholders and that their financial accountings must be available to the public; it certainly doesn’t mean that they’re not also into making money.

The Vanguard Experiment was designed to prove that mutual funds could operate independently, and do so in a manner that would directly benefit their shareholders.

We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values; a vision of fiduciary duty and shareholder service, and values rooted in the proven principles of long-term investing and of trusteeship that demands integrity in serving our clients.

Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.

If CEO compensation was performance-driven, which I believe it was in IBM’s case, nobody would ever argue. If the shareholders didn’t make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn’t make millions of dollars. My salary was the same for 10 years. It was all performance-based.

In private companies that are successful, the management have learnt to put their staff first, customers second, shareholders last.

There is strong mentoring of women in the academy. Corporations appear more willing to resist affirmative action to advance women, and boards and shareholders are more tolerant of this approach.

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time.

If you have a drug that is $100 for one course of therapy, and you know that you can charge $100,000, what should shareholders think when you say, ‘I’d rather not take the heat‘?

A movie studio has to answer to a marketing department, and to shareholders, to ensure the broadest audience possible for its product; it tends to err on the side of caution as a result.

The customer is number one, the employee is number two and the shareholder is number three. If the customer is happy, the business is happy, and the shareholders are happy.

Large organizations don’t worship shareholders or customers, they worship the past. If it were otherwise, it wouldn’t take a crisis to set a company on a new path.

We can collaborate with a Netscape employee or partner who’s halfway around the world. We can distribute information and software to customers and shareholders, and get their feedback.

Some foreign investors accuse us of being unfair to shareholders by using our resources for community development. Yes, this is money that could have made for dividend payouts, but it also is money that’s uplifting and improving the quality of life of people in the rural areas where we operate and work. We owe them that.

I have never seen an employee who jumps out of bed in the morning in order to create shareholder value.

Business exists to supply goods and services to customers and economic surplus to society, rather than to supply jobs to workers and managers or even dividends to shareholders.

We do not talk enough about spirit in business, yet it is what moves employees, customers, and shareholders alike.

If power lies more and more in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one’s vote at the ballot box, but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders’ meeting. When provoked, corporations respond.

If the government wants to do social policy, it should not be done in a quasi-public company. If you have a mortgage guarantee company which is done by the U.S. government, it should be guaranteed by the originators, i.e., the shareholder.

Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders—in that order.

Scale can create value for shareholders; for consumers, who are beneficiaries of better products, delivered more quickly and at less cost; for the businesses that are our customers; and for the economy as a whole.

A lost job can put a smile on any shareholder’s face.

The ability to please your shareholders comes because of what you do for clients.

In 2014, I left my job and launched TransTech Social Enterprises, a for-profit and nonprofit hybrid model focusing on the well-being of the trans community, not on external profits for shareholders.

My job is to listen to ideas, maybe cook up a few of my own, and make decisions based on what’s good for the shareholders and for the company.

The Congress is not willing to think about the long term. They act like activist shareholders, to use that phrase again. They’re not thinking about what can we do that will make us richer, safer, and stronger next year, and the year after, and five and 10 years out.

For decades, activist shareholders were an entertaining, but largely ignored, Wall Street sideshow. Disgruntled investors would attend annual meetings to harangue executives, criticize strategies – and protest that their complaints were being ignored.

We can collaborate with a Netscape employee or partner who’s halfway around the world. We can distribute information and software to customers and shareholders, and get their feedback.

I am very confident that we will be able to convince all the stakeholders – the shareholders, the governments and the employees, that this is in their best interests.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it – their shareholders would revolt at anything less.

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

The total amount paid out in dividends is roughly equal to the amount lost in trading and investment advice, so net dividends to shareholders are zero. This is a very peculiar way to run a republic.

Being a smaller, nimbler company is better for our customers, employees and shareholders.

In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders – if they abandoned their other stakeholders.

When you face the shareholders, then you can feel the heat is on you. For 20 years I got to answer to my shareholders. It’s not easy.

In the age of activism that is clearly not going away, it would seem that some form of engagement from directors with shareholders – rather than directors simply taking their cues from management – would go a long way toward helping boards work on behalf of all shareholders rather just the most vocal.

All I’m trying to do is manage money and take care of my shareholders.

I don’t believe that someone who sets up an institution should be able to take out the money from the institution or pay dividends to shareholders. I am not saying that institutions should be set up for charity.

The board is currently undertaking what could be its most important task, … We are confident that we’re going to make a choice that is in the best interest of the company, shareholders and others.

Shareholders have the right and obligation to set the parameters of corporate behavior within which management pursues profit.

I don’t think of myself as a hard man, but other people may think otherwise. You know you have obligations to do the best you can for people, for your job, for your shareholders… it all has to be balanced between the hardness and the softness.

Altruism, especially involving basic freedoms, can be what shareholders value most.

I’m a spreadsheet guy. But you get to that moment of truth, and it has nothing to do with a spreadsheet. You’ve got to factor in what your competitors are doing, what the technology is doing, what your shareholders want, what your employees want, what your customers want, and you’ve got to make it happen sometimes.

When companies fail, shareholders bear the losses. It’s just the way our system is supposed to work.

Customers should be number 1, Employees number 2, and then only your Shareholders come at number 3.

Chasing revenues that don’t have good earnings doesn’t help us or shareholders one lick.

We have an obligation to provide a return for our shareholders.

A press statement may be given with a very good intention, but it says nothing beyond it. If it comes from corporations they run, then it is corporate social responsibility (CSR). That’s different from philanthropy. CSR is a lot of shareholders, including me.

Corporate executives need to re-frame their responsibilities to include the interests of all the stakeholders in society at large; not just shareholders, but also employees, the citizens of our communities, and those who care about the environment.

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity are in a state of shocked disbelief.

NFL leadership has hurt Papa John‘s shareholders.

We have new rules that give shareholders the ability to vote on executive compensation. We have new rules for asset-backed securities. We have new rules around credit rating agencies.

What I am saying is, all health care has a problem with costs. Medicare is growing slower than the private insurance plans. Why? Because of their efficiency. They don’t have to give money to shareholders. Why should be defending shareholders?

The typical entrepreneur is no longer the bold and tireless man of Marshall, or the sly and rapacious Moneybags of Marx, but a mass of inert shareholders, indistinguishable from rentiers, who employ salaried managers to run their concerns.

A lot of deals are done or not done because chief executives are not fully aligned to shareholders.

Back in the 1970s, Kodak tried to give $25m to a black civil rights organisation in Rochester, New York. The company’s shareholders rose up in arms: making this politically charged offering wasn’t the reason they had entrusted Kodak with their money. The donation was withdrawn.

Is management candid with the shareholders?

We believe that a company’s obligations extend far beyond its bottom line and its shareholders – to a wider constituency that includes employees, customers, suppliers, and the community.

The typical American corporation is a shareholders’ republic the same way that China is a peoples’ republic.

You can look at what I did in the Senate. I did introduce legislation to rein in compensation. I looked at ways that the shareholders would have more control over what was going on in that arena. And specifically said to Wall Street, that what they were doing in the mortgage market was bringing our country down.

Companies that are publicly held have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to try to maximize their profits within ethical reasons.

The market is going to love it. The market always seems to applaud major mergers, even though the vast majority of them don’t work out and don’t increase shareholder value.

A strong player, which has the sufficient critical mass, can withhold pressure better and create a more stable environment that benefits shareholders as well as employees.

The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done – dare I say it – in the name of God.

With every story that TV covers, somebody – some corporation, some shareholders – are making money. That’s true whether covering Libya, Iraq, the tsunami in Japan, Osama bin Laden, whatever story there is. That day, the shareholders are making money off it. Every newspaper that’s sold, somebody’s making a dime.

Every once in a while, brave companies step out and act in ways that move customers and shareholders to also act in good faith.

Russia has a well-known reputation for corruption; unfortunately, I discovered that it was far worse than many had thought. While working in Moscow I learned that Russian oligarchs stole from shareholders, which included the fund I advised.

Government is the people’s business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.

Companies are returning a lot of money to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. And a lot of people say that’s not a good use of capital. I think that’s normal reallocation of capital.

Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But, looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss.

WrestleMania‘s the accumulation of a lot of things. All the shareholders come in for all the meetings with the suits and everything.

Our model is to develop each business separately with its own shareholder and management – this way we can concentrate on the job in hand, rather than be part of some enormous and faceless conglomerate.

Large companies cannot finance political parties as their shareholders and employees have different political views.

Great fit and synergism for both companies and excellent outcome for employees, customers and shareholders.

I’ve heard people say South Africans are arrogant, that they act no differently from their colonial masters. That needs to change. It’s in your business interest as an entrepreneur to form meaningful partnerships. That’s how you do well for your shareholders.

The employers who do best are employers who reject these false choices. It’s not a zero-sum world where you either take care of your workers or you take care of your shareholders. You can do good and do well, too.

Shareholders need to have a real interest in the companies they own. Too many are simply too busy – they are asleep at the wheel.

Experts said public companies worry about the loss of customer confidence and the legal liability to shareholders or security vendors when they report flaws.

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

We generated $13.5 billion in cash flow from operations and returned almost $21 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the March quarter. That brings cumulative payments under our capital return program to $66 billion.

Well-managed companies with independent boards have nothing to fear from activist shareholders.

We have moved from treating funds as investment trusts designed to serve their owner-beneficiaries to treating funds as consumer products, designed to attract the largest possible assets. This new approach has ill-served the interests of fund shareholders.

If you run a business, put on top your employees, then your consumers, and then your shareholders.

We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets.

ESG investing often marches under the same banner as ‘stakeholder capitalism,’ which maintains that corporations owe obligations to a range of constituencies, not only their shareholders.

I try to make myself happy … because I know that if I’m not happy, my colleagues are not happy, and my shareholders are not happy, and my customers are not happy.

The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management’s reluctance to reward the shareholders.

Regarding our links with the Russian government, Severstal is a private company with no government participation. We are answerable to our shareholders.

Legacy doesn’t mean a lot because once you have left, even if you are one of the biggest individual shareholders it only means [a small amount of influence]. But it’s something I’m very pleased about.

My obligation is to the owners of Barclays, my shareholders. They hired me. People who criticise compensation for individuals in isolation at, say, BarCap, individuals who don’t work in the U.K. and are competing with U.S., German or Asian banks, they should look at all these factors.