Quotes & Sayings About Shareholders

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. — Yvon Chouinard

The worst example of rural poverty is that of migrant farm workers. They have no permanent jobs, so they have no equity in the places where they work. They're not shareholders, let alone entrepreneurs. They're not small farmers, they're not market gardeners, they're just temporary - uprooted, isolated, easily exploitable people. — Wendell Berry

Some companies use off-balance-sheet partnerships to raise money or to buy assets without ever telling their shareholders in their financial statements. — Alex Berenson

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. — Nigel Lawson

People need to understand: Businesses are going to make mistakes. They shouldn't be shot and hung every time. We should apologize for it. We should make up for it. My shareholders paid for it. No customer was hurt, which is critical to me. But I hurt my shareholders, and I wish I hadn't. — Jamie Dimon

We have to defend views we don't share and impose them on the public; deal with questions we don't understand and vulgarize them for the gallery. We can't have ideas of our own, we have to have those of the editor; and even the editor doesn't have the right to think with his own head, because when he's sent for by the board of directors he has to stifle his own views, if he has any, and support those of the shareholders. — Pitigrilli

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

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. — Frank Lowy

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. — Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

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. — Roy O. Disney

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. — Jamie Dimon

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

The main effect of turning a partnership into a corporation was to transfer the financial risk to the shareholders. "When things go wrong it's their problem, — Michael Lewis

On the basis of capitalist production, a new swindle with the wages of management develops in connection with joint-stock companies, in that, over and above the actual managing director, a number of governing and supervisory boards arise, for which management and supervision are in fact a mere pretext for the robbery of shareholders and their own enrichment. — Karl Marx

It is very clear that the present system of innovation for medicines is very inefficient and really somewhat corrupt. It benefits shareholders over patients; it produces for the rich markets and not for the poor and does not produce for minority diseases. — John Sulston

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. — Kenneth C. Griffin

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. — Peter Oppenheimer

When you're C.E.O., you have to have two conditions: first, shareholders need to trust you and want you to head your company. The second is that you need to feel the motivation to do the job. So, as long as both are reunited, you continue to do the job. And today, they are reunited. — Carlos Ghosn

When the legendary Steve Schwarzman's firm went public in 2007, I was convinced that this was merely an opportunity to take advantage of a huge spike in the stock market for the partners in Blackstone to cash out and ultimately call it a day. I saw the public offering then as an unworthy investment, which could only serve to fill the partners' pockets while they proceeded to 'mail it in' for their new shareholders. But I have been proven completely wrong. Blackstone's history since its public offering is a continued history of success stories, and I believe the current energy restructuring opportunity will be no different. Elsewhere in this book, I talk a bit about the deal it made with Linn Energy, with very advantageous terms for Blackstone. As a long-term hold, I can find no better (public) PE firm to invest in. — Dan Dicker

Banks do not create money for the public good. They are businesses owned by private shareholders. Their purpose is to make a profit. — John Rogers

If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'. If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders. — Jeroen Dijsselbloem

I have to look out for the shareholder's interests, and I'm the largest shareholder. — Carl Icahn

Banks need to have large shareholders on the board that have a direct interest in their performance. — Mian Muhammad Mansha

How can HOW help us repair our faltering global economy?
Only by getting our "hows" right can we ensure that we are sustainable. This can only be achieved when we are rooted in, and inspired by, sustainable values. The global economic meltdown supplied a perfect, but painful, example of how sustainability cannot be guided by situational values. The economic crash occurred because too many financial companies became disconnected from fundamental values and long-term sustainable thinking. Instead of nurturing sustainable collaborations, banks, lenders, borrowers and shareholders pursued short-term relationships founded on situational values. More than ever we need to get out of this cycle of crises and build long-term success and deep human connections so that we achieve enduring significance in today's globally interconnected world. — Dov Seidman

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. — Mike Love

A boycott would send a clear message to Yahoo shareholders and other companies which cheerfully sacrifice human rights in return for a cut of the Chinese market. — Simon Davies

Chasing revenues that don't have good earnings doesn't help us or shareholders one lick. — Phebe Novakovic

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

In truth, it's not the shareholders of the American International Group who benefited most from its bailout; they were mostly wiped out. The great beneficiaries have been the creditors and counterparties at the other end of A.I.G.'s derivatives deals - firms like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Barclays and UBS. — Tyler Cowen

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less. — Dianne Feinstein

Our goal is to make General Motors the most valuable automotive company. Clearly, that is having sustainable profitability and driving great returns for our shareholders. — Mary Barra

The name 'JSW', you will note, is not particularly imaginative. Nor is it the kind of thing you would imagine is incredible intellectual property. Yet, in 2014, JSW Steel told shareholders that it would pay Rs 125 crore a year to a firm entirely owned by Sajjan Jindal's wife, Sangita. In return, Sangita Jindal would graciously permit her husband to use the 'JSW' acronym, which JSW Steel insists her company, JSW Investments, owns. — Mihir S. Sharma

That law that created the native corporations was the idea of tanik American corporations to undermine tribal integrity." "What do you mean?" Bertie asks. "Everywhere else in the U.S., tribes have their own government, their own land, and their own money." "They have a monopoly on casinos, you mean," Bertie says cautiously. "Whatever it is. Our tribes in Alaska don't have nothing. It's the native corporations who have all the land and the money, and they're the ones making decisions." "But don't you think they're making decisions in the best interests of their shareholders, the native people?" "They're just making money for their shareholders like any other corporation," Mandy says. "And they hire taniks in Anchorage offices to carry out their business. They don't care about whether people up here are taking their dividends and drinking them away. I hate to say it, but I got to agree with Luther. It's a long, slow genocide, all done under the corporations' laws. — Elizaveta Ristrova

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. — Jim Barksdale

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. — Malcolm Turnbull

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. — Charlie Munger

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

This is an amazingly sound place. We are more disaster-resistant than most other places. We haven't pushed it as hard as other people would have pushed it. I don't want to go back to Go. I've been to Go. A lot of our shareholders have a majority of their net worth in Berkshire, and they don't want to go back to Go either. — Charlie Munger

It can be argued that the U.S. brokerage and investment banking industry has transformed the modern American stock market into nothing more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from shareholders to management. — Peter Schiff

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

Driving stock up from one day to the next is not what we are about. We are about building a good company and performing for the long term. I know everyone says that, that sounds trite when I repeat it that way, but that is and has always been our attitude about our business. If we do the right things, the stock price will take care of itself, and our shareholders will be rewarded. — James Sinegal

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

The shareholders who own the businesses in this book have other, nonfinancial priorities in addition to their financial objectives. Not that they don't want to earn a good return on their investment, but it's not their only goal, or even necessarily their paramount goal. They're also interested in being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great service to customers, having great relationships with their suppliers, making great contributions to the communities they live and work in, and finding great ways to lead their lives. They've learned, moreover, that to excel in all those things, they have to keep ownership and control inside the company and, in many cases, place significant limits on how much and how fast they grow. The wealth they've created, though substantial, has been a byproduct of success in these other areas. I call them small giants. — Bo Burlingham

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. — Robert Reich

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. — Gary Hamel

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. — Thomas Perez

For most of the twentieth century, directors were paid largely in cash. Now, so that their interests will be aligned with those of shareholders, much of their pay is in stock. Boards of directors were once populated by corporate insiders, family members, and cronies of the C.E.O. Today, boards have many more independent directors, and C.E.O.s typically have less influence over how boards run. And S.E.C. reforms since the early nineteen-nineties have forced companies to be transparent about executive compensation. — Anonymous

I agree with Peter Drucker that the culture and legal systems of the United Statesare especially favorable to shareholder interests, compared to other interests and compared to most other countries. Indeed, there are many other countries where any good going to public shareholders has a very low priority and almost every other constituency stands higher in line. — Charlie Munger

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. — Lee R. Raymond

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

I try to make myself happy, no, 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. — Jack Ma

In New York, we have laws against defrauding the public, defrauding consumers, defrauding shareholders. — Eric Schneiderman

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. — Hillary Clinton

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. — Norman Lear

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. — John Mackey

We met financial expectations for the quarter in a difficult economic environment. We also signed a two-year programming agreement with Home & Garden Television to launch two new cable television series, and launched the Martha Stewart Kids magazine These initiatives provide future revenue and earnings growth for the brand and build long-term value for shareholders. — Martha Stewart

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. — Jack Ma

Michael, don't you know by now that my grandmother and Uncle Alfred are the largest private shareholders of Singapore Press Holdings? We're not going to be in the papers. We're never going to be in the papers. — Kevin Kwan

After a long investigation the SEC has fined Halliburton $7.5 million for issuing fraudulent statements exaggerating their profits in 1998 and 1999 during which their CEO was - oh who was it? Oh that's right ... Cheney himself has not been implicated in the scandal and according to Cheney's lawyer there is no allegation whatsoever that he acted in any way other than in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. And you know what? It's still true today. — Jon Stewart

In our search for more, we have blinded ourselves to our personal responsibility for challenging these absurdities. A resource-based society considers us all equal shareholders of Earth. We are responsible both for the planet and for our relationship with each other. — Jacque Fresco

Big banks have long had private equity divisions that put up capital for deals too complex or risky for individual shareholders to finance. — Alex Berenson

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. — Nancy Grace

CSR can help business reach the goals of social justice and economic prosperity by creating welfare for a broad range of social groups, beyond the corporations and their shareholders. — Howard R. Bowen

They used to ask: "How will this decision that we make today affect our people in the future?" Now we make decisions based on: "How does it affect me, now? How does it affect the next shareholders meeting, three months ahead? How does it affect my next political campaign?" — Jane Goodall

A lot of people love Oreos. So their manufacturer is making money. That means more dividends for shareholders. — Maria Bartiromo

The ultimate arbiters of the models of banking and the management of banking are the investors. It's the shareholders. — Bob Diamond

If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know. If the big banks don't expect to buy influence and are merely making charitable contributions, then their shareholders have a right to know. Either way, there's no excuse for keeping these payments secret. — Elizabeth Warren

If men's wages too have been depressed, if there literally aren't enough jobs, or enough money to pay for them (what with the dire need to pay CEOs so many more times more than anyone else, not to mention the precious shareholders), then the category 'woman' remains a useful one for the 'first fired, last hired' policy that has characterized the employment market for much of the last hundred years or so. — Nina Power

Patagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a 'B-corporation.' That's a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community, and the environment, as well as shareholders. — Robert Reich

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care. — Dianne Feinstein

I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done ... and that has been my philosophy on running the business. — Walt Disney

The owners and top managers of most news media organizations tend to be conservative and Republican. This is hardly surprising. The shareholders and executives of multi-billion-dollar corporations are not very interested in undermining the free enterprise system, for example, income from offended advertisers. These owners and managers ultimately decide which reporters, newscasters, and editors to hire or fire, promote or discourage. Journalists who want to get a head, therefore, may have to come to terms with the policies of the people who own and run media businesses. — Edward S. Greenberg

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. — Warren Buffett

When someone takes their existing business and tries to transform it into something else - they fail. In technology that is often the case. Look at Kodak: it was the dominant imaging company in the world. They did fabulously during the great depression, but then wiped out the shareholders because of technological change. — Charlie Munger

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. — Jed S. Rakoff

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. — Richard Branson

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

I don't think our fiduciary duty is to put shareholders first. I say the opposite. What we firmly believe is that if we focus our company on improving the lives of the world's citizens and come up with genuine sustainable solutions, we are more in synch with consumers and society and ultimately this will result in good shareholder returns. — Paul Polman

I definitely have a shareholders' perspective. I'm not doing that altruistically. I'm doing that because it's in my own self interest to do it. I think that's good for my other shareholders because they go along with me: If I do well for myself, then they do well for themselves. — Harold Simmons

There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here's the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.
Jeff Bezos
From 7 insightful quotes to shareholders via letter. 2017 — Malini Chaudhri

Is management candid with the shareholders? — Warren Buffett

Shareholders," murmured Eddie, the word echoing meaninglessly in his head. His brain had screeched to a halt in front of an earlier word in the sentence, and it now stood (in a figurative sense) stock still, with its eyes wide and its jaw open, staring at the word in awe. Lovely Wanda Kwan, the vaguely Asian-American publishing company representative, had uttered, through her lip gloss and perfect teeth, the one word that every writer secretly yearns to hear. That word is movie. "Ms. Kwan," he began. — Robert Kroese

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. — Patrice Motsepe

Compensation needs to be predominately performance-driven. 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. — Louis V. Gerstner Jr.

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? — Justin Theroux

Book publishers needed only to listen to Jeff Bezos himself to have their fears stoked. Amazon's founder repeatedly suggested he had little reverence for the old "gatekeepers" of the media, whose business models were forged during the analogue age and whose function it was to review content and then subjectively decide what the public got to consume. This was to be a new age of creative surplus, where it was easy for anyone to create something, find an audience, and allow the market to determine the proper economic reward. "Even well meaning gatekeepers slow innovation," Bezos wrote in his 2011 letter to shareholders. "When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there's no expert gatekeeper ready to say 'that will never work!' And guess what - many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity. — Brad Stone

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

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

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking. — Christina Romer

All I'm trying to do is manage money and take care of my shareholders. — Louis Navellier

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. — Noreena Hertz

I'd be resentful if shareholders who don't know the business tried to tell me what to do. — S. Truett Cathy

Enduring great companies don't exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. Indeed, in a truly great company, profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life. — James C. Collins

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. — Dhirubhai Ambani

Markets mean patrons, buyers, consumers. There is under capitalism one way to wealth: to serve the consumers better and cheaper than other people do. But in the shop and factory, the owner - or in the corporations, the representative of the shareholders, the president - is the boss. The mastership is merely apparent and conditional. He is subject to the supremacy of the consumer. The consumer is king - the real boss - and the manufacturer is done for if he does not outstrip his competitors in best serving the consumers. It was this great economic transformation that changed the face of the world. — Ludwig Von Mises

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. — Joel Bakan

Why would you as a consumer continue to support a product that exists to build someone's empire or satisfy shareholders, when you could buy a product that exists 100 per cent to help someone else? (pg 168) — Daniel Flynn

The goal of the nonprofessional should not be to pick winners - neither he nor his "helpers" can do that - but should rather be to own a cross section of businesses that in aggregate are bound to do well. A low-cost S&P 500 index fund will achieve this goal. - WARREN BUFFETT, 2013 letter to shareholders — Anthony Robbins

Nationalization would likely mean wiping out the big banks' managements and shareholders. It's because that reckoning has mostly been avoided so far that those bankers may be the Americans in the greatest denial of all. — Frank Rich

The shareholders who financed the risk taking had no real understanding of what the risk takers were doing, and, as the risk taking grew ever more complex, their understanding diminished. All that was clear was that the profits to be had from smart people making complicated bets overwhelmed anything that could be had from servicing customers, or allocating capital to productive enterprise. — Michael Lewis