So, it appears that the boards of directors of AIM listed companies are becoming more male. Or, perhaps, fewer such boards contain women:
Smaller listed companies are increasingly going back to operating with all-male boards, according to newly published evidence described as “profoundly shocking” by campaigners for gender diversity in the boardroom.
The number of companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market, or Aim, with no women on the board has jumped this year by 73 per cent from 108 to 187.
Which is an interesting outcome.
Now, the argument in favour of more women comes in two parts. One is that just, well, there should be more wimmins. ‘S’fair, see?
To the extent that employment and the economy should be fair it’s a reasonable argument of course. I tend to think that argument’s toss but perhaps that’s just me.
But there’s always been another string to this bow, strand to the argument. Which is that having women - diversity more generally - makes companies more profitable. Something that could be true, different experiences of life could lead to a board more able to take useful decisions. Again, my personal opinion is that a board of differing viewpoints will be useful, one of different gonads and the same oppressively woke opinions won’t be. But, you know, my opinion and all that.
But now we come to one of the grand joys of actual markets. Pretty much everything does get tried out in a market. There was, famously, that idea of having a rock as a pet. More stupidly there’s been this idea that renewables will be cheaper and if that were left to the market the stupidity would already be apparent. But the point about markets is that sure, OK, you’ve got this idea. Now go test it against reality.
And as ever in any scientific endeavour, it’s reality that wins.
Fiona Hathorn, chief executive of WB, said the growth in what she called the “anti-ED&I agenda” was also “deeply unhelpful” and might be having an impact on company thinking. Politicians in this election were increasingly using anti-ED&I rhetoric, she said.
”WB” is a pressure group arguing for more birds to get comfy sinecures on boards.
Hathorn said an unacceptable number of boardrooms were still male dominated. “I sense a real danger of attention drifting on this issue.”
A possibly useful answer is tough titty, Love.
While all-male boards have completely disappeared among FTSE 100 companies and are very rare in other large listed companies, the picture is different among smaller companies, WB said.
OK, outside pressure on large companies.
While targets for female board representation are set by the Financial Reporting Council for companies in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 under their “comply or explain” regime, there is less regulatory pressure on smaller listed companies to diversify boards.
No such pressure on smaller companies. The outcome is that larger companies succumb to the pressure, smaller do not.
Hmm, interesting, no? We can assume that companies are run by money hungry capitalists. So, if wimmins in the boardroom made more money then they’d be actively recruited. Where there’s the freedom from outside pressure and targets they’re not. So, wimmins in the boardroom - just in order to have wimmins in the boardroom - is not profit maximising.
Therefore, we should stop having the targets and pressure. Obvs.
But leave my unfashionable - even, not socially acceptable - opinions out of this. We are still left with this grand and wondrous function of markets. Many people have many claims about all sorts of things. They all need testing, not just asserting. “Markets” is how we do test them - and most of those assertions fail that test.
Oh well, how sad.
As I’ve been known to point out, no business plan does survive first contact with the market.
187 companies out of how many companies listed on AIM? A quick search say that in February 2023 there were 727 companies on AIM. So approximately only a quarter of the companies chose to have all male boards.