Responsible Capitalism and the Culture of Investment

This paper outlines the background to, and describes the main conclusions of, the government-initiated Kay Review into UK equity markets and long-term decision making published in July 2012. The review, whose conclusions were accepted by the UK government, vividly describes flaws in the relationships between investors and businesses and concludes that short-termism is a key problem. It suggests that the principal causes of the short-term approach to investment are a decline of trust and the misalignment of incentives at the various stages of the equity investment chain. Among its recommendations is that the UK Stewardship Code, which advocates greater engagement by shareholders with the companies in which they invest, should include a more expansive form of stewardship, focussing on strategic as well as corporate governance issues.