Need a fund director? I’m available

An open letter to the many fund executives who read InvestmentNews:
If you need a director for one of your many fund boards, please consider me.
Let me tell you why I’m an excellent candidate.
First, I’m so busy at my day job at InvestmentNews, I’d have very little time to do anything other than attend board meetings and rubber-stamp whatever you wanted.
As a journalist, I have vast experience at going to cocktail parties and dinners, making small talk with big shots and listening to executives spout banalities while sporting a convincingly rapt expression.
Those qualities seem to be the most prized attributes of fund directors.
Second, I’m getting on in years and have no desire to start big fights. Even though mutual funds actually own the companies they invest in, and have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to make sure those assets are well managed, you can rest easy.
I’m not going to start a ruckus over green investing, social responsibility, corporate governance or any of those annoying issues. And I won’t be one of those John Bogle types who think fund directors should act on their fiduciary responsibility literally and make sure corporate executives actually do what they get paid so handsomely to do. Why make a fetish of fiduciary duty anyway?
Third, and this follows closely from Point No. 2, I’ll just take the money and sit there. I could use the dough. Sure, by the standards of Wall Street, directors’ pay is trifling, but as InvestmentNews reporter David Hoffman wrote Monday, year-over-year median compensation paid to fund directors increased an average of 4.2% last year, to $49,000. That’s not bad for showing up at a few meetings.
The directors’ pay figures, by the way, are based on a study by Management Practice Inc., a Stamford, Conn. consulting firm for independent fund directors. The firm found that the overall increase in median pay is due to a number of factors, including additional meetings called by many boards to deal with issues related to the credit crisis.
I go to plenty of meetings already, so a few extra won’t kill me — especially for an extra $1,000 bucks a week, more or less.
And I won’t feel one pang of guilt about directors’ getting a pay increase while shareholders are getting clobbered. I’ve been a fund shareholder for more years than I care to think about, so I’ve paid my dues in terms of management fees and so-so performance. Let me take a ride on the gravy train for a change.
Fourth, the director’s liability issue. Sure, there is one. But I can’t remember when a fund director at a mainstream fund actually got nailed for anything, especially if he went along with the pack.
I’m not worried. For one thing, I promise never to have an independent thought. And most important, my retirement accounts — invested exclusively in mutual funds — are so anemic of late that there’s scant treasure for litigious shareholders to go after.
Finally, my name is short, easy on the eyes and kind of bland. That’s an important consideration in proxy voting, as shareholders typically take three seconds to make their choice among a list of faceless, unknown directors.
If there’s a Mary Smith on your short list, go with her. But otherwise, pick me.

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