UK: Heller on Management - No way to measure real value.

Managers pursue shareholder value, which says everything about stock-market supply and demand, writes Robert Heller, but nothing about management performance.

With stock-market tumult erasing billions of paper profits in a day, the cult of 'shareholder value' is looking distinctly raddled. Yet the pursuit of shareholder value continues to line the pockets of many executives. Sharp falls in the market have left many options valueless but even a temporary deprivation of fat profits won't easily persuade managerial devotees of crude shareholder value that it is a wildly inappropriate means of defining corporate strategy.