The past year has not been a great one for advocates of shareholder value — or at least the Anglo version of it that genuflects before narrowly financial measures of corporate performance.

In the US, financial engineering was a central preoccupation of chief executives who were encouraged by a one-off tax relief for the repatriation of foreign cash to engage in record stock buybacks. The value destruction has been considerable, especially among already cash-rich tech companies. Of course the buybacks will increase earnings per share, but without any improvement in operating performance. At today’s dented share price levels, the opportunity cost bears thinking about.

In the UK, institutional shareholders failed to halt a string of egregious boardroom pay awards, thereby fuelling the anti-business, anti-establishment sentiment on which populist politics feeds. Meantime, short-termism turned out to be at the heart of the problems of failed outsourcing group Carillion.