Can this be legally challenged?
16 replies (most recent on top)
heading into borrowings to fund dividends phase soon
@cn Shareholder value is the financial benefit shareholders receive from owning a portion of the Company. Chevron’s dividend provides a yield of 4.15%, and share buybacks reduce share dilution and support the stock price. Financing the dividend is relatively nominal and can be a timing issue relative to cash flow. If CVX were to reduce the dividend, or dilute the number of shares, it would negatively impact shareholder value.
Have you heard of at will employment? Companies don't have a legal obligation to employ anyone
@bs+1jjm2jddf How does borrowing money and paying interest on it create shareholder value? The company is just trying to keep its dividend royalty status, hoping that investors will continue to keep their money in the stock.
@bn your correct that there is not a legal requirement to maximize “profit” which, by the way is different from shareholder value. But that does not in anyway lessen their fiduciary responsibilities and in no way implies they can’t take that course of action, just that it is not mandated by law. In the real world, few CEOs would survive very long without shareholder value being front and center. Why do you think Chevron will borrow to maintain or increase the dividend, and does share buybacks totaling about $10 billion?
I'm fortunate to have a few million to my name. I can afford to keep 5 staff on the payroll full-time to do a sh---y job cleaning my house. It doesn't mean it is a prudent decision to do so.
Chevron has a lot of unnecessary bureaucrats and sh---y engineers/geologists/(name your function). It could be $120 oil and it still wouldn't be a prudent decision to keep them.
@a8, publicly traded companies do not have a fiduciary responsibility to maximise profits, this is a common misconception - one that is damaging to society.
To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”
Company directors and executives are required to act in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, and it’s up to the company and shareholders to decide what this means. It doesn’t have to mean maximizing profits to the exclusion of all other ethical and social responsibilities.
Chevron operates globally, extracting valuable resources that are the collective property of sovereign nations and their people. Giving back to those communities through royalties, taxes, employment and social infrastructure is part of the social contract is part of the social contract. If Chevron wants to ignore that social contract and focus on short-term profit generation, we might find that their social license to operate in those countries is severely diminished, affecting long term profitability and business viability.
Furthermore, have the execs of these companies that are focussing exclusively on short-term profitability considered what will happen to their businesses when offshoring and automation has caused such a high level of redundancy amongst their employees that no one can continue to afford the product they are selling?
This is why you should always act your wage at work. It is not your company. Why even offer 2 weeks notice?
If execs have a fiduciary duty to maximize returns, why aren't they replacing many GMs and upward levels to India or other cheap areas? This argument is always foolish. China and Japan laugh at the stupid white guys running the American companies who continue to complain about not enough engineering talent in the US, when they offshore or replace with H1Bs every chance they get.
Op clearly has no idea of the principles of capitalism ,our and every publicly traded company basis.
If op is an employee they along with the hiring manager should be dismissed.
I love half-educated trolls, with ChatGPT they are the smartest guys online but sometimes, when they try to think, their hollow heads ring out, and you get to hear those rings as stup!d questions on this layoff site.
@af+1jjm2jddf you are right, this is too d-mb a question to come from an employee,.
OP - do you even work here?
That's a really naïve assumption. Banks have plenty of money, shouldn't they just give you some if you need or want it? Can you sue them for not doing that? It's really no different. Most businesses have working capital. That doesn't mean that any employees of that business have the right to take it and divi it all up amongst themselves.
You may have relatively a lot of money compared to your adult children. You should all divide it up evenly today, it's only fair, right?
CVX is a publicly traded for profit company. The CEO has a fiduciary obligation to maximize return for the shareholders. There is no obligation to retain or support employees unless that furthers the return to shareholders. MW has made the call, likely with support from the Board, that maximizing return means cutting costs and returning free cash flow to investors. That maybe short sighted, but is not illegal.
That's all rumor, we are barely scraping by. I mean just ask MW and MN, they don't want to do all these plans but they have to. They wouldn't lie to the employees.