Resources
We conduct original research on the causes of short-term business decisions and work to find practical solutions.
In the News
8 February 2017 - Does pressure to deliver short-term earnings undermine the long-term performance of U.S. companies? That’s been a hotly-debated issue in corporate America for a long time. (I remember the day in the 1980s when the late Senator Paul Tsongas visited The Wall Street Journal to inform us he was going to run for president and make eliminating quarterly earnings a key plank in his campaign!) But the debate has gotten hotter in the last decade, with surveys of CEOs suggesting pressure to deliver short-term results is on...
In the News
8 February 2017 - On the day of the first-ever board meeting of FCLT Global, chair Mark Wiseman made the nonprofit’s position clear: “Each and every day that a short-term decision is made, we are destroying value.” Four months later, the group has the data to back Wiseman up. On average, U.S. companies with a long-term focus reported 47 percent higher revenue than other large and midsize businesses from 2001 to 2014, according to a study by McKinsey & Co. expected to be released today. They also showed less volatility...
In the News
7 February 2017 - This has long seemed intuitively true to us. We’ve seen companies such as Unilever, AT&T, and Amazon succeed by sticking resolutely to a long-term view. And yet we have not had the comprehensive data needed to quantify the payoff from managing for the long term — until now. New research, led by a team from McKinsey Global Institute in cooperation with FCLT Global, found that companies that operate with a true long-term mindset have consistently outperformed their industry peers since 2001 across almost every financial measure...
Article
1 February 2017 - We are pleased to announce that Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of AT&T, has been appointed to the FCLTGlobal Board of Directors, and Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, and Nitin Nohria, Ph.D and Dean of Harvard Business School, will serve as Strategic Advisors. Stephenson, who has been at the helm of AT&T since 2007, was previously the senior executive vice president and CFO of Southwestern Bell Telephone from 2001-2004, and the company’s COO. He is a member of the board of directors of Emerson Electric Co....
Article
14 December 2016 - Jonathan Bailey, Director of Research at FCLT Global, speaks to Carsten Stendevad about what it takes to build a long-term oriented investment organization. Carsten Stendevad is CEO of ATP, one of Europe’s largest pension plans with 5 million members and $120bn in assets. Under his leadership since April 2013, ATP has fundamentally redesigned its investment strategy and expanded its direct investment capability, delivering strong investment returns. ATP has also tripled the size of its benefit processing business, while substantially reducing operating costs. Carsten announced that he will step down...
In the News
5 October 2016 - An argument is raging on Wall Street. Some institutional investors are hoping to win it. Over the past year, questions have increasingly been raised over whether corporations are losing sight of the future by obsessing over short-term financial performance. Vice President Joe Biden is even getting involved: In a September 27 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, he called this short-term mindset “one of the greatest threats to America’s enduring prosperity.”
In the News
29 September 2016 - The influential CEO of BlackRock, the asset manager that oversees almost $5 trillion in investments, Fink is known in financial circles for his hectoring letters of instruction to the companies he invests in. His name has also been floated as a possible Treasury secretary in a Clinton administration. In his most recent letter, Fink tackled the problem of short-term thinking in management, and urged companies to take a longer view to enhance value.
In the News
29 September 2016 - Launched as an initiative in 2013, Focusing Capital on the Long Term yesterday (28 September) announced that it has established itself as an independent entity, renamed as FCLT Global. The not-for-profit organisation is dedicated to “developing practical tools and approaches that encourage long-term behaviours in business and investment decision-making”.
In the News
29 September 2016 -