Resources
We conduct original research on the causes of short-term business decisions and work to find practical solutions.
In the News
12 July 2018 - Every asset owner I have met proclaims they are a long-term investor in much the same way that every CEO declares that their greatest asset is their people – automatically and without thinking about it too much. It has become almost a throw-away line. Many of us haven’t paused to properly define what it means to be a long-term investor, allowing myths to take hold and distort its true meaning.
In the News
6 July 2018 - In conjunction with Business Roundtable, an association of nearly 200 major company CEOs, they wrote that, “in our experience, quarterly earnings guidance often leads to an unhealthy focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term strategy, growth and sustainability.” Further, “companies frequently hold back on technology spending, hiring, and research and development to meet quarterly earnings forecasts that may be affected by factors outside the company’s control.”
In the News
7 June 2018 - Buffett, who runs Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), and Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (JPM) chief executive officer, said in a joint Wall Street Journal editorial that they are encouraging all public companies to consider moving away the practice, arguing that it can stifle long-term investments. “Quarterly earnings guidance often leads to an unhealthy focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term strategy, growth and sustainability,” they said.
In the News
7 June 2018 - Buffett, who runs Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive officer, said in a joint Wall Street Journal editorial that they are encouraging all public companies to consider moving away the practice, arguing that it can stifle long-term investments.
In the News
22 May 2018 - In “Streetwise: ‘Quarterly Capitalism’ Doesn’t Add Up” (Business & Finance, May 11), James Mackintosh argues that concerns over short-termism in the U.S. economy are unfounded. While last quarter’s increased capital expenditures, largely driven by investments from the technology sector broadly, and Amazon specifically, are encouraging, it’s important not to extrapolate current trends and the leadership of one organization across the entire economy.
In the News
19 May 2018 - Hiromichi Mizuno, chief investment officer of Japan’s ¥162.8 trillion ($1.5 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund, has made hiring external managers for a full market cycle a cornerstone of GPIF’s efforts to craft fee arrangements better aimed at promoting long-term approaches to investing. Mr. Mizuno, speaking on a panel May 15 at the CFA annual conference in Hong Kong, painted GPIF’s decision to make multiyear commitments to managers — while taking “short-term performance … totally out of the evaluation methodology” — as his response to managers’ criticism...
Article
15 May 2018 - National (and often international) attention was focused on the unveiling of the White House’s revamped tax plan for much of 2017. Regardless of your political leaning, the impact of the bill on US companies was undeniable; the CBO has predicted a $300B+ benefit to US corporations within a decade of the bill’s passage. This impact raised a major question: what will these firms do with their newfound capital? While this question remains largely unanswered, new data from Q1 earnings season suggests some of this cash is headed...
In the News
14 May 2018 - The NZ$38 billion ($26.9 billion) fund, which established a team last year to make sizable direct investments domestically, said last week it will seek to lead a consortium to design, build and operate a planned NZ$6 billion light rail system for the city of Auckland.
Article
24 April 2018 - Let’s start with the facts: it is critical to be clear about what we know and what we do not. Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria and Harvard Business School Professor George Serafeim started 2018 Focusing Capital on the Long Term Summit by administering a quiz on many facets of long-term investing to dispel misconceptions and provide participants with foundational knowledge to apply for the rest of the day. This questionnaire, created by Serafeim and Nohria, explores the incentives, institutions, and behaviors that give rise to short-termism....
In the News
19 April 2018 - Sarah Williamson is the CEO of FCLTGlobal (formerly Focusing Capital on the Long Term), an organization cofounded in 2016 by BlackRock, CPPIB, Dow Chemical, McKinsey, and Tata Sons to encourage a longer-term focus in business and investment decision making. According to Williamson, a current concern among many institutional investors as well as corporations is that companies don’t get credit for long-term investments in R&D. This is both because the resulting knowledge might walk out the door, as employees join other firms or start their own,...
