Allan Gray's Andrew Lapping on directors who lose their cool
Bent on accountability, Allan Gray exec slates 'freeloading' directors
There are too many freeloaders in South Africa's boardrooms, says Andrew Lapping, chief investment officer of Allan Gray, one of the country's largest asset managers. "In a lot of boards people are happy to take their fees, but there is very little accountability," he says. "No one is standing up and being accountable for what is going on." Allan Gray recently got rid of the board of underperforming construction company Group Five, in which it is a 25% shareholder. "We thought the board was not doing a good job and we needed to replace them," says Lapping, 40. He says a lack of shareholder activism has encouraged a culture of unaccountability in boardrooms. Severance packages should be subject to a shareholder vote, he says, "because all it is really is the board making their life easy by paying someone to go away". "But if someone is extremely well paid to do a job and they're not doing the job well, then the board should exit them and should not pay them money to go away." It took...
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