News
31/01/2008
€330m additional investment spurs GO's growth and new appointments
Governance for Owners (GO), the relational investment and governance overlay partnership, has won new mandates from two major US pension funds, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System (LACERS), and has been awarded additional funds from an existing client. These mandates total €330m ($485m) and bring the total funds available to the GO European Focus Funds for investment to €1 billion ($1.5bn) from 11 institutional clients.
GO had already embarked on a recruitment drive to expand its team in anticipation of these new fund commitments in 2008 and is delighted to announce that Hélène Jelman joined GO’s investment team on January 21 as an Investment Director to work with Steve Brown, Robert Machell and Paola Perotti on investment and engagement. Hélène has more than a decade of investment management experience, having previously been CIO and a principal at Arlington Capital Investors, a London-based European activist fund management firm where she led the investment research and analysis team, and was actively involved in engaging with investee companies. Prior to that, Hélène managed European smaller companies portfolios at Deutsche Asset Management. Hélène holds a BSc in Mathematics with Economics from the University of Sussex and is bilingual in French and English and fluent in Spanish.
GO has also expanded its Advisory Board with the appointment of French businessman André Lévy-Lang. André’s career spans a number of industries from oil field servicing with Schlumberger to banking with Paribas, where he was CEO from 1990 to 1999, when it merged with BNP to create BNP Paribas. He was on the boards of Schlumberger, Assurances Générales de France, Péchiney, Elf Aquitaine and Finaxa and is currently on the boards of Dexia, SCOR, and Paris-Orleans . He is a governor of the American Hospital in Paris, chairs the Fondation du Risque and sits on the boards of Institut Français des Relations Internationales, of Institut Europlace de Finance and of Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques. He is an affiliate Professor of Finance at the Université de Paris-Dauphine. He is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and holds a PhD in Business Administration from Stanford University.
The GO team now consists of 37 professionals of 14 different nationalities – 9 of them European.
Commenting on these developments, Peter Butler, a founding partner and GO’s CEO, said, “We are delighted to have attracted investments from two more leading California pension funds. There is a growing commitment to the shareholder engagement asset class, particularly in the USA, and our marketing pipeline is stronger than ever. The appointments of Hélène, who already has extensive relational investing experience, and André, who has a wealth of experience in European business, both diversify and strengthen our team at an important time.”
ENDS
For further information contact:
Peter Butler (GO) 020 7614 4755
Michelle Edkins (GO) 020 7614 4767
Mani Pillai, Penrose (for GO) 020 7786 4814
Notes to Editors:
1. Governance for Owners (GO) was established in November 2004 by Peter Butler and Steve Brown and has operations in Europe, the USA, South East Asia and Japan. The group is an independent partnership between major institutional share owners, a long-term financial backer and its senior executives. GO is dedicated to adding long-term shareholder value for clients by exercising owners’ rights.
GO has two main offerings:
• The GO European Focus Fund, which invests in European public companies where value can be added through exercising owners' rights to address key structural or strategic governance weaknesses that have impaired company performance.
• The GO Stewardship Service, which offers independent corporate governance and share owner engagement services to the world’s long-term public equity owners and their fund managers. The service provides voting advice on the largest 1500 largest companies in the US, Europe, South East Asia and Japan, and this is combined with a more intensive programme of enhanced-value engagement on selected companies within our clients’ portfolios.
Governance for Owners Group LLP, the parent, operates in Europe through Governance for Owners LLP, in Japan through Governance for Owners Japan KK, and in the US through Governance for Owners USA Inc. Governance for Owners LLP is the general partner of the GO European Focus Fund. Governance for Owners Group’s board members include founders Peter Butler and Steve Brown, Bob Monks (Chairman), investor appointees Ronnie Armist and Derek Scott, and independent director Sir John Egan. Bob Monks is also Chairman of Governance for Owners USA Inc, where Bill Crist is Deputy Chairman and Peter Clapman is Chief Executive. The directors of Governance for Owners Japan KK are Peter Butler, Michelle Edkins and, in an executive capacity, Toshiaki Oguchi.
Summary CVs of key personnel can be found on GO’s website www.g4owners.com
2. CalSTRS, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System is the second largest US public pension fund and the largest US teachers' retirement fund. It administers retirement, disability and survivor benefits for California's 813,000 public school educators and their families. As of December 31, 2007, its assets were $173.7 billion. For more information visit: http://www.calstrs.com
3. LACERS, the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, is responsible for administration of the City’s pension plan to more than 30,000 active employees and 15,000 retirees and beneficiaries. LACERS portfolio size totalled $11.1 billion as of June 30, 2007. For more information visit: http://www.lacers.org