John Kay needs to replace “shareholder value” with “corporate value”

John Kay’s interim report finds that equity markets are failing in their primary tasks, which he identifies as enhancing the long-term growth of listed companies and providing savers with an appropriately high, risk-adjusted return on their investments. The failure lies, he suggests, in the way that market actors are currently incentivised. If asset managers are assessed on a quarterly or biannual basis, it is not surprising that they apply benchmarks based on the short-run performance of the firms they invest in.