Post: #1

Quote:http://qz.com/168083/in-hong-kong-having...rformance/

Hong Kong activist investor David Webb has crunched the numbers on shareholder returns and the gender breakdown of local boards, and found it doesn’t really matter whether women are involved or not.

Webb, who is well-known for his strident defense of shareholder rights, most recently in relation to Alibaba’s IPO plans, looked at 10 years of total returns for the all of the companies that use the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as their primary listing (some 1,500 in 2013) to come to his conclusion. He found that companies with no women on the board outperformed those with women in five of the 10 years, and vice versa.

(Webb did not include companies with four or more women on the board in his analysis, because he said there were so few—35 out of 1,502 companies had four, seven companies had five, and none had six or more—as to make the figures “statistically useless.”)


“The most we can say is that these data do not provide any compelling evidence that board gender diversity adds value to investors,” Webb wrote. “It does seem more socially equitable to have gender diversity, but then so does having diversity in nationality, race, religion or sexual orientation … [but] capital allocation is driven by investment returns, not by social equity.”

Women make up just 10.7% of board members at all of Hong Kong’s listed companies, and only 60% of companies have a female board member. That’s about even with the US, where women occupy only 11.4% of board seats.


Webb’s findings run counter to a growing body of research, mostly from the United States and Europe, that shows that adding women to publicly-traded companies boards can increase share price and reduce risk.

Even the website tries to spin it with the title "in hong kong having women on the board has no effect on company performance"

I think its absolutely whack that some places (cough Ontario and the TSX) people are pushing the government to mandate that corporate boards are 50% women. Of course feminist will always push for glamorous positions and not "50% of garbage service jobs should be occupied by women"

Post: #2

I'm not sure your title fits the research, the article says that boards with women outperformed entirely male boards half the time. So basically having women on boards has no impact on return, which could mean that any monies used by companies to give additional support to women is wasted from a return on investment performance.

It doesn't mean that boards without women outperform boards with women.

Post: #3

(01-19-2014 05:39 AM)Statsi Wrote:  I'm not sure your title fits the research, the article says that boards with women outperformed entirely male boards half the time. So basically having women on boards has no impact on return, which could mean that any monies used by companies to give additional support to women is wasted from a return on investment performance.

It doesn't mean that boards without women outperform boards with women.

40% of the companies have the best returns over 50% of the time, meaning that they are indeed outperforming the rest - just. The # of years in the sample is quite small, though. The numbers might be more meaningful over 50+ periods of returns.

Still, it would be pretty interesting to fill a whole board with just women, and watch them burn the company to the ground over a week or 2

Post: #4

(01-19-2014 06:36 AM)Architekt Wrote:  

(01-19-2014 05:39 AM)Statsi Wrote:  I'm not sure your title fits the research, the article says that boards with women outperformed entirely male boards half the time. So basically having women on boards has no impact on return, which could mean that any monies used by companies to give additional support to women is wasted from a return on investment performance.

It doesn't mean that boards without women outperform boards with women.

40% of the companies have the best returns over 50% of the time, meaning that they are indeed outperforming the rest - just. The # of years in the sample is quite small, though. The numbers might be more meaningful over 50+ periods of returns.

Still, it would be pretty interesting to fill a whole board with just women, and watch them burn the company to the ground over a week or 2

You don't even need to fill the whole board with women, just have the main women behind it rule with a bunch of her close confidants.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/201...r=hpt-tout

Post: #5

It's a tricky one to examine statistically, as you don't really know the level of input of the women on the boards. Following a single company's fortunes over time before and after the addition of female board members might be better than comparing those successful enough to be able to take the risk of employing female board members to the mean. With far more entirely male boards they will by definition tend more to the mean, where as those companies who employ women would be more likely to be outliers.

Though with Norway and some EU nations poised to add quotas of 40% female board members we will probably see the hysterical effects of fucking with the free market when these feminised boards go up against the entirely male American and Asian internationals.

Post: #6

(01-19-2014 06:59 AM)Statsi Wrote:  Though with Norway and some EU nations poised to add quotas of 40% female board members we will probably see the hysterical effects of fucking with the free market when these feminised boards go up against the entirely male American and Asian internationals.

Lol, they're not even going to have the numbers to fill out those positions.. I foresee many companies failing spectacularly in the near future, when their HR departments start running them

Post: #7

If there is a truly qualified woman, put her on the board. I hate hearing in investment shops how female managed funds outperformed their benchmark. Great... so did funds managed by men. I really don't care if you're female or male, gay, straight, whatever when it comes to business. If you're qualified and you have talent, you get to be on top.

Post: #8

(01-19-2014 06:59 AM)Statsi Wrote:  Though with Norway and some EU nations poised to add quotas of 40% female board members we will probably see the hysterical effects of fucking with the free market when these feminised boards go up against the entirely male American and Asian internationals.

Ah, how I love capitalism. All the regulations and rules that attempt to level the playing field often help create huge problems and develop monopolies.

Post: #9

(01-19-2014 11:33 AM)Mike5055 Wrote:  If there is a truly qualified woman, put her on the board. I hate hearing in investment shops how female managed funds outperformed their benchmark. Great... so did funds managed by men. I really don't care if you're female or male, gay, straight, whatever when it comes to business. If you're qualified and you have talent, you get to be on top.

Exactly. Forcing companies to take staff, who might be underqualified, just because they have to fill a quota, is potentially damaging and just fucking ridiculous. So much for "equality"