Maybe Good Governance Is Bad

Bloomberg Opinion (Jul 18, 2024) "Maybe Good Governance Is Bad" by Matt Levine explores the institutional-investor common-ownership theory: when large diversified investors own multiple companies in the same industry, those companies have less incentive to compete with each other, because price cuts by one portfolio company hurt overall shareholder returns. Levine notes the theory remains controversial — disputes about the empirical evidence and an intuitive resistance to the conclusion — but is real enough to colour antitrust and corporate-governance debates. Useful provocation for SEA mid-market boards understanding why concentrated index-fund ownership matters even where it appears passive on the surface.