On February 28th, the 4th Good Governance Forum Awards were held in Barcelona, with the participation of the president of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Sebastián Albella, the president of ATREVIA and the Good Governance Forum, Núria Vilanova and IESE professor, Joan Roure.
The event was also attended by the CEO of Neinor Homes, Juan Velayos, and the executive director of CaixaBank’s and counsel to the Presidency, Juan Carlos Gallego. They collected awards for their companies, due to the promotion of new technologies that bring shareholders and companies closer together.
Albella has emphasized the role of the CNMV in the development of codes of standard for good governance in listed companies and its follow-up, in order to make sure these are met. Moreover, detailing some modifications that will be implemented, with a deadline of June 2019 of the Directive 2007-, as “the right of companies to identify their shareholders, the policy of involvement and the investment strategy of institutional investors and asset managers; the transparency and approval of related companies and the actions of the voting advisors, their codes of conduct, their conflicts of interest, their methodologies … “.
Furthermore, the president of the Forum, Núria Vilanova, highlighted in the presentation that the initiatives of the award-winning companies, CaixaBank and Neinor Homes, “promote an approach that brings shareholders and company closer through new technologies and thus achieve a more personal communication, one that’s in the first person with all of them “. According to Vilanova, “the key to the success of companies is adapting to new environments, to new generations, to new ways of relating and communicating, and applying it to relevant environments such as shareholders”.
IESE professor, Joan Roure, emphasized that, “now, more than ever, in a moment of transformation that’s so fast, good governance is an essential element for the competitiveness of organizations and their future, from startups to listed companies”.
The jury decided to recognize CaixaBank for launching, within its virtual shareholder’s office, an innovative idea that uses video calling to offer a permanent customer service and bring closer to the company those minor shareholders. “We guide and adapt ourselves to the needs of a digital society that demands more and more information about the companies they invest in”, explained Juan Carlos Gallego. The executive director and counsel to the CaixaBank Presidency, remarked that the company, “works to maintain the maximum transparency of information with the minor shareholders, as it does with its institutional investors.” Finally, he commented that “quality and transparency in the attention and information to the shareholder, is the foundation of the virtual Office that we launched in 2017 and for which CaixaBank is rewarded today”.
In the case of Neinor Homes, the jury took in to account its commitment to transparency and accessibility, where they organized presentations of quarterly results through Webcast (online conference, in which the Chief Executive Officer and the Financial Director appeared). The CEO of the company, Juan Velayos, said that “we come from a sector, real estate, which does not stand out for governance and transparency, precisely what we now need in order to stablish credibility, and in our case as a company, to have it as competitive advantage that, in a fairly close tomorrow will become a commodity “.
