Selling stock is the easy way out if you have an issue with how a company is run, according to Bill Crist, chairman of Governance for Owners. He has always taken the tougher option of trying to make companies better managed.

When he was chairman of Calpers, the $190bn (£115bn, €128bn) Californian pension fund for public employees, and companies responded to engagement initiatives by suggesting the fund sell stock, this is the sort of reply they got: “We’re not going to sell your stinking stock; we’re going to come and talk to your board members, we’re going to try and organise others to get together.”