Shareholders In Quotes & Sayings

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

The banks don't have anything - no rights whatsoever. The banks are shareholders of SLEC, and SLEC has no rights ... I am the CEO of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration, which runs the business in F1. From this point of view, I own F1. — Bernie Ecclestone

I'm going to continue doing my thing and work my butt off to add value for shareholders and as long as they and the board see fit to keep me in this role, I feel enormously privileged to serve. — Andrew Mason

All this plan does is make everybody a capitalist. I know that the New York Stock Exchange says there are 25 million shareholders in the United States, but let me tell you something: about 15 million of those people could save their dividends for 10 years and maybe buy a new suit. That's not what I call capitalism. — Louis O. Kelso

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

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.

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

When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Michael Dell had declared he had so little faith in an Apple recovery that if he were Jobs, he'd "shut Apple down and give the money back to the shareholders. — Fred Vogelstein

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

Shareholder value is the result of you doing a great job, watching your share price go up, your shareholders win, and dividends increasing. What happens when you have increasing shareholder value? You're delivering better employees to their communities and they can give back. Communities are winning because employees are involved in mentoring and all these other things. Customers are winning because you're providing them new products. — Jack Welch

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 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

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

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

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

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

I am very pleased with the progress of the new CBS Corporation. The Company's rapid pace of change and innovative approach to emerging business opportunities can be seen in the many strategic announcements we have made over these past few months. The more focused and more nimble organization we sought to create has become a reality and that aggressive spirit of excellence and innovation will continue to benefit shareholders for many years to come. — Sumner Redstone

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

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. — Daniel Yergin

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

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. — Dieter Zetsche

Shareholders share in the downside and not necessarily in the upside; that's the whole story. — John Gutfreund

There are certainly valid reasons for taking a company private, and it's also possible that C.E.O.s perform better when monitored by a small number of owners in a private company rather than by the dispersed and often uninterested shareholders of a public corporation. — James Surowiecki

Ultimately, strong branding is not just a promise to our customers,to our partners, to our shareholders and to our communities;it is also a promise to ourselves ... in that sense, it is about using a brand as a beacon, as a compass, for determining the right actions, for staying the course, for evolving a culture, for inspiring a company to reach its full potential. — Carly Fiorina

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. — Noreena Hertz

I am convinced that companies should put staff first, customers second and shareholders third - ultimately that's in the best interest of customers and shareholders. — Richard Branson

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, — Alan Greenspan

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. — George J. Mitchell

The call to leadership excellence means you must now be awake to the reality that you are no longer your own, you are a blessing to society. In business, this will also mean value given to shareholders, customers, employees as well as society. This will take you, your family and your corporate base to appreciate that your leadership role and influence demands that they share you with other causes and stakeholders. As an effective person, you must be able to balance the demands on you and create the additional time that leadership at a higher level requires. — Archibald Marwizi

Haven't you figured it out? Giving money away doesn't solve anything. Asking the zottarich to redeem themselves by giving money away acknowledges that they deserve it all, should be in charge of deciding where it goes. It's pretending that you can get rich without being a bandit. Letting them decide what gets funded declares the planet to be a giant corporation that the major shareholders get to direct. It says that government is just middle-management, hired or fired on the whim of the directors. — Cory Doctorow

Most shareholders have little if any control over the companies in which they own stock, even if they own a million shares. — Robert Kiyosaki

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. — Hillary Clinton

One out of every eight prisoners in the world is an African American. We are warehousing people as a profit to shareholders or for benefits to communities that get to host federal prisons. It is modern slavery. — Randall Robinson

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. — Andrew Ross Sorkin

My county? Another concept to which you attach from a distance a rather vague ideal. You want to know what "my country" really is? Nothing more or less than a gathering of shareholders, a form of property, bourgeois mentality, and vanity. Think about all the people in your country whom you wouldn't go near, and you'll see that the ties that are supposed to bind us together don't go very deep.... — Gabriel Chevallier

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

I have got this letter which actually goes out the day after I die. It has already been written. And it says that: "Yesterday I died". And then it says: "That's bad news for me, but it's not bad news for you, the shareholders of Berkshire". And then I go on and explain what is going to happen. I know that is one time when they will be really interested in hearing from me. — Warren Buffett

We've now become conscious of the uncalculated social, economic, and environmental costs of that kind of "unconscious" capitalism. And many are beginning to practice a form of "conscious capitalism," which involves integrity and higher standards, and in which companies are responsible not just to shareholders, but also to employees, consumers, suppliers, and communities. Some call it "stakeholder capitalism." — Patricia Aburdene

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. — Ruth J. Simmons

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. — Brian Roberts

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. — Bob Iger

What's more, the ripple effect of winning extends beyond the Win3. There are additional stakeholders who also win. These include the buyer's company, your company's shareholders, others in your company who build the product and deliver the service you sell, or those who simply keep their jobs because your sales contribute to the company's bottom line. You can even add your personal stakeholders, including family and friends, because your well-being and financial success affect them, too. When a collaborative sale is made, and the buyer's POWNs are addressed, it's a string of wins all around. — Nancy Bleeke

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. — Simon Mainwaring

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. — Alan Greenspan

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

In terms of companies, they must stand for something bigger. They must be dedicated to something larger than financial results. I reject the Milton Friedman belief that a company's sole responsibility is to the shareholders. — Srikumar Rao

Everyone in the room knew about leveraged buyouts, often called LBOs. In an LBO, a small group of senior executives, usually working with a Wall Street partner, proposes to buy its company from public shareholders, using massive amounts of borrowed money. Critics of this procedure called it stealing the company from its owners and fretted that the growing mountain of corporate debt was hindering America's ability to compete abroad. Everyone knew LBOs meant deep cuts in research and every other imaginable budget, all sacrificed to pay off debt. Proponents insisted that companies forced to meet steep debt payments grew lean and mean. On one thing they all agreed: The executives who launched LBOs got filthy rich. — Bryan Burrough

We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served - as shareholders and in all other ways - by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company. — Larry Page

What we're trying to do is determine if our shareholders and customers have been misled. We can't think of a single shareholder who would believe that the PSC order isn't in their best interest. — Chad Jones

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. — Simon Mainwaring

Loyal employees in any company create loyal customers, who in turn create happy shareholders. — Richard Branson

Why not stakeholder action? There's no economic principal that says that management should be responsive to shareholders, in fact you can read in texts of business economics that they could just as well have a system in which the management is responsible to stakeholders. — Noam Chomsky

The public shareholders who invested with Buffett also got rich, and in exactly the same proportion to their capital that Buffett did. The numbers themselves are almost inconceivable. If one had invested $10,000 when Buffett began his career, working out of his study in Omaha in 1956, and had stuck with him throughout, one would have had an investment at the end of 1995 worth $125 million.2 — Roger Lowenstein

As I have indicated some time ago, I intend to divest my shareholding when I leave the Club. In doing so, my overriding principle is that I shall do what I believe is best for the future of Celtic. I have also indicated my intention that my shareholding will be made available to be held broadly amongst the supporters and existing shareholders of the Club. I believe that this should produce the best structure of ownership for the Club and the Company. — Fergus McCann

The problems that exist on Wall Street today go to the center of a debate in this country about wealth and democracy. We cannot keep our democracy if those who are in charge of handling the engines of our economy are not honest with their shareholders. That's why there is a role for government regulation here. That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated. — Dennis Kucinich

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. — Herbert Schiller

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

The problems are our lives. In the "developed" countries, at least, the large problems occur because all of us are living either partly wrong or almost entirely wrong. It was not just the greed of corporate shareholders and the hubris of corporate executives that put the fate of Prince William Sound into one ship; it was also our demand that energy be cheap and plentiful. — Wendell Berry

In an age where everything and everyone is linked through networks of glass and air, no one - no business, organization, government agency, country - is an island. We need to do right by all our stakeholders, and that's how you create value for shareholders. And one thing is for sure - no organization can succeed in a world that is failing. — Don Tapscott

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. — Mark Mobius

To whom is an international corporation answerable? Often they do not employ workers. They outsource manufacturing to places far away. If wages rise in one place, they can, almost instantly, transfer production to somewhere else. If a tax regime in one country becomes burdensome, they can relocate to another. To whom, then, are they accountable? By whom are they controllable? For whom are they responsible? To which group of people other than shareholders do they owe loyalty? The extreme mobility, not only of capital but also of manufacturing and servicing, is in danger of creating institutions that have power without responsibility, as well as a social class, the global elite, that has no organic connection with any group except itself. — Jonathan Sacks

To most people any radical change is even more odious than cynicism. The only way between the horns of dilemma is to persist at all costs in the ignorance which permits one to go on doing wrong in the comforting belief that yb doing so one is accomplishing one's duty / one's duty to the company, to the shareholders, to the family, the city, the state, the fatherland, the church. For, of course, poor Hansen's case wasn't in any way unique; on a smaller scale, and therefore with less power to do evil, he was acting like all those civil servants and statesmen and prelates who go through life spreading misery and destruction in the name of their ideals and under orders from their categorical imperatives. — Aldous Huxley

Corporate social responsibility is measured in terms of businesses improving conditions for their employees, shareholders, communities, and environment. But moral responsibility goes further, reflecting the need for corporations to address fundamental ethical issues such as inclusion, dignity, and equality. — Klaus Schwab

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. — Bob Diamond

Goldman Sachs itself - and so Goldman was in the position of selling bonds to its customers created by its own traders, so they might bet against them. Secondly, there was a crude, messy, slow, but acceptable substitute for Mike Burry's credit default swaps: the actual cash bonds. According to a former Goldman derivatives trader, Goldman would buy the triple-A tranche of some CDO, pair it off with the credit default swaps AIG sold Goldman that insured the tranche (at a cost well below the yield on the tranche), declare the entire package risk-free, and hold it off its balance sheet. Of course, the whole thing wasn't risk-free: If AIG went bust, the insurance was worthless, and Goldman could lose everything. Today Goldman Sachs is, to put it mildly, unhelpful when asked to explain exactly what it did, and this lack of transparency extends to its own shareholders. If a team of forensic accountants went over Goldman's books, they'd be shocked at just how good Goldman is at hiding things, — Michael Lewis

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. — Lakshmi Mittal

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. — Ratan Tata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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