Women on the board the best investment

A woman on the board can bring luck. Companies that had at least one woman on the board of directors have been 26 per cent more successful than those which had none, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute.

The report called «Gender Diversity and Corporate Performance," has been analyzing the performance of around 2,400 companies with and without women board members over the last six years.The study proved that when economic growth was high there was little difference in share price performance between companies with and without women on the board. However after the 2008 financial crisis companies with women on the board have strongly outperformed those that had none. "This in-depth study provides investors with striking evidence that greater gender diversity is a valuable additional metric to consider when evaluating investments.” says Stefano Natella, Co-Head of Securities Research & Analytics.Credit Suisse found that the average return on equity (ROE) of companies with at least one woman on the board is 16 per cent against 12 percent for companies with no female board representation. The report also says net debt to equity of companies with a male board of directors is 50 per cent versus 48 per cent for companies with at least one woman on the board.Also net income growth for companies with women on the board has been 14% over the past six years compared to 10% for those with no female board members.The report also says that over the past six years, the fastest rates of change in female representation have come from European companies. ”Under 50% of European companies had one or more women on the board at the end of 2005, but by the end of 2011 this had increased to close to 84%”, writes Credit Suisse. Female representation varies widely across the globe from 100% in Sweden’s blue chips, to none, in Hungary or Peru.