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  3. Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown Uni

Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown Uni

admin2012-01-27  60
问题     Ruth Simmons joined Goldman Sachs’s board as an outside director in January 2000; a year later she became president of Brown University in Rhode Island. For the rest of the decade she apparently juggled (同时做) both roles (as well as several other directorships) without attracting much criticism. But by the end of 2009 Ms Simmons was under fire from students and alumni for having sat on Goldman’s compensation committee; how could she have let those enormous bonus payouts pass unremarked? By February Ms Simmons had left the board. The position was just taking up too much time, she said.
    Outside directors are supposed to serve as helpful, yet less biased, advisers on a firm’s board. Having made their wealth and their reputations elsewhere, they presumably have enough independence to disagree with the chief executive’s proposals. Leaders from other fields are frequently in demand: former presidents or Cabinet members, retired CEOs, and yes, university presidents. If the sky, and the share price, is falling, outside directors should be able to give advice based on having weathered their own crises.
    The researchers from the Ohio State University used a database that covered more than 10,000 firms and more than 64,000 different directors between 1989 and 2004. Then they simply checked which directors stayed from one proxy statement to the next. The most likely reason for departing a board was age, so the researchers concentrated on those "surprise" disappearances by directors under the age of 70. They found that after a surprise departure, the probability that the company will subsequently have to restate earnings increases by nearly 20%. The likelihood of being named in a federal class-action lawsuit also increases, and the stock is likely to perform worse. The effect tended to be larger for larger firms.
    The obvious conclusion might be that outside directors, with inside knowledge of tricky times ahead, prefer to save their own reputations, rather than those of the company they are serving. But although a correlation between them leaving and subsequent bad performance at the firm is suggestive, it does not mean that such directors are always jumping off a sinking ship. Often they "trade up", leaving riskier, smaller firms for larger and more stable firms.
    But the researchers believe that outside directors have an easier time of avoiding a blow to their reputations if they leave a firm before bad news breaks, even if a review of history shows they were on the board at the time any wrongdoing occurred. Firms who want to keep their outside directors through tough times may have to create incentives, such as increasing pay, says Dr Fahlenbrach. Otherwise outside directors will follow the example of Ms Simmons, once again very popular on campus.
What will happen after an outside director left a firm surprisingly, according to the researchers?
选项 A、The firm will have to file for bankruptcy very soon.
B、The outside director’s reputation will be ruined completely.
C、The firm is likely to do less well in the stock market.
D、Other positions taken by the outside director will be affected.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的left a firm surprisingly将本题出处定位到第3段第4、5句。第4句提到，在外部董事的意外离职后，其所在公司随后必须重述盈余的  概率增加了近20％。第5句又列举了两个后果：卷入联邦集体诉讼案的可能性也  会增大，而股票的表现也可能会更糟。[C]是对该句提到的第二个后果的同义转  述，故为答案。[A]“公司很快要破产”是对外部董事离职后果的过度推断。由文  中可知，外部董事为了不毁掉自己的名誉，往往会在公司陷入困境前离开该公  司，故[B]“外部董事的名誉扫地”不正确。Ms Simmons离开高盛后，在学校的工  作并未受到影响，故[D]“外部董事的其他职位将受到影响”与原文不符。
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