Category: Governance
As momentum grows around stakeholder capitalism, Paul Hodgson looks at the ultimate stakeholder companies: Public benefit corporations As momentum grows around stakeholder capitalism, Paul Hodgson looks at the ultimate stakeholder companies: Public b… As momentum grows around stakeholder capitalism, Paul Hodgson looks at the ultimate stakeholder companies: Public benefit corporations
Jan 21st, 2021
In July last year, US insurance company Lemonade completed one of 2020’s strongest IPOs, seeing its share price gain 139% on its first day of trading. As a certified B-Corp, Lemonade has a legal obligation to consider the fortunes of all stakeholders: shareholders, workers, community, customers and the environment.
In December, Airbnb had its IPO - again a fairly good one. The holiday rental giant has a stakeholder committee of the board, has written stakeholder principles and has a stakeholder charter; but it also has multiple share classes, including one (owned by the founders) with 20 votes per share, compared to the common stock’s one vote per share. So who’s really the most important stakeholder at Airbnb?
There are 3,745 B-Corps across 74 countries, but - of the 480 companies that floated in the US in 2020 - just two of them were B-Corps. In addition to Lemonade, egg company Vital Farms went public at the end of July 2020.
But out of…