Is the English Premier League owners' and directors' test fit for purpose?

Dr Ioannis Oikonomou and Professor Chris Brooks’ work on the connection between corporate social performance and fixed income securities was recently recognised for its academic rigor and practical significance as its summary was included in the latest issue of CFA Digest, a periodical publication of the CFA Institute (available at this link http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/full/10.2469/dig.v44.n6.8).

Infrastructure is the new buzzword in finance these days even though infrastructure has been important at least since the days when the Romans built their roads across Britain and Europe. The difference today is that increasingly the government says it cannot finance such infrastructure - roads, railways, power generation, telecoms, airports etc. The telecoms industry is already completely privately owned in most countries as are an increasing number of airports across the world. But governments everywhere are now looking ever more to public private partnerships (PPPs) to provide the annual funding (the annual revenues required to service bank loan and bond interest payments and capital repayments and equity dividends) as well as the actual financing (the arranging of bank loans, bond issues and equity share issues) to provide the cash up-front.

Professor Simone Varotto analysed the financial reports of UK-listed companies from 1996-2018 and found a surprising pattern in how markets respond to different types of climate disclosures after natural disasters strike.