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State Owned Enterprises in the World Economy
Corporate Governance and Beyond

Presentation
Hans Christiansen
OECD Senior Economist
OECD Steering Group on Corporage Governance

Discussant
Mike Lubrano
Managing Director, Corporate Governance
Cartica Capital

Tuesday, April 28 2009
OECD Washington Center
2001 L Street NW, Suite 650
Washington DC, 20036
9:00-10:00 AM Presentation, 8:30 AM Registration

While the series is free of charge, space is limited. 
We ask you to please register by Monday, April 27.

Event Description:

After decades of privatization, state owned enterprises (SOEs) have swept back to the centre of interest of policy makers and business people. There are several reasons for this: 

• There has been a brisk growth of a number of emerging economies in which SOEs still account for anywhere from 10% to 50% of value added. In addition, many of these countries are rapidly integrating into the world economy.  
• SOE in the more advanced economies tend to be concentrated in a few “strategic” sectors of great consequence for the competitiveness and commercial performance of the private corporate sectors.
• Governments have increasingly chosen to list minority shareholdings of their SOEs on stock exchanges, thus raising the profile of SOEs in the conventional corporate governance landscape.
• Recent government-led recapitalisation of financial institutions has further contributed to a renewed policy focus on SOEs.

A “renaissance” of SOEs gives rise to several potential challenges for policy makers. OECD’s existing corporate governance instruments, including the Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises, help identify these. For example, the maintenance of a level playing field among state owned and wholly commercial entities – within as well as across borders – is a top priority.  Another important consideration relates to possible non-commercial objectives of SOEs: when governments choose to maintain ownership of corporate entities it is usually assumed that a reason is that these are expected to pursue some objectives beyond what a wholly privately owned company would have done. However, in an increasingly international economy securing a high degree of transparency and accountability around such objectives is a matter of high priority. 

Hans Christiansen will discuss all of these issues, against the background of OECD’s corporate governance instruments, as well as recent work and nascent initiatives in this area.

Biographies:

Hans Christiansen is a Senior Economist in the OECD Corporate Affairs Division. He joined the Division after previous postings in the OECD Investment Division, Financial Affairs Division and the Economics Directorate. He used to be the editor of the journals OECD Financial Market Trends and OECD International Investment Perspectives. Prior to joining OECD, he worked as a central banker at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland with special responsibility for European monetary integration.  Mr. Christiansen currently acts as Secretary to the OECD Working Group on Privatisation and Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. His assignments for the Working Group include OECD’s ongoing projects on State-Owned Enterprises in the World Economy and Temporary Government Control of Corporate Entities. In addition he is involved in the work of the OECD Steering Group on Corporate Governance in relation to the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, and he is one of the officials in charge of overseeing the current process of accession of new countries to the OECD. A Danish national, he holds a graduate degree in Political Economy from the University of Copenhagen. 

Mike Lubrano is Managing Director, Corporate Governance, of Cartica Capital. Prior to joining Cartica, Mr. Lubrano set up International Finance Corporation's corporate governance practice and served as Manager of IFC's Corporate Governance Unit. After joining IFC in 1997, Mr. Lubrano established corporate governance as a central element of IFC's sustainable development strategy. He developed the IFC Corporate Governance Methodology, which is used to assess the quality of governance of potential IFC clients and to identity opportunities to add value by improving their boards, control environment, transparency and disclosure, and treatment of financial stakeholders.  Mr. Lubrano is internationally recognized as a leader in fostering good corporate governance practices in emerging markets, was named one of the ten most influential people in international corporate governance in 2006 by Global ProxyWatch, and is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group of the Global Corporate Governance Forum. Prior to joining IFC, Mr. Lubrano worked for the World Bank on the 1995 Mexican financial crisis and was an international securities lawyer with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.  He received his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College; his J.D. cum laude from New York University School of Law; and his M.P.A from Princeton University.

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