Three quotes last week made us think – optimists’ hats secured with some extra jerry-rigging just to be sure – some fundamental change is afoot.

#1: Management of the Sequoia Fund, one of the longest running and most successful fundamental value equities fund in history – it got started with some Buffet influence – sent an extraordinary letter to its shareholders on Oct 28 about its Valeant stake, which the New York Times picked up last week. We have questioned the congruence of Valeant’s strategy and the unwritten rules of a social license to operate before. Sequoia’s managers had this to say: “One lesson of recent events is that sometimes doing everything legally permissible to maximize earnings does not create shareholder value. All enduring businesses must strive to earn and maintain a good reputation.” And they continue with a call to action – in tempered Wall Street tone, of course – for Valeant to take a more strategic approach to managing business practices and corporate reputation.

#2: David Crane, NRG’s CEO whom we already highlighted last week, spoke on November 12 at Columbia University – take-away’s summarized by GreenTechMedia – and commented further on his investor accommodation policy. As NRG is spinning off its green energy assets to appease investors he commented that this investor pressure and negativity is “freeing” and that he has said to himself “I’m not going to try to figure it out; I’m just going to do the right thing.” How is that for putting long-term sustainable business models, that many investors say they want, ahead of immediate shareholder demands?

#3: And here we’re securing our optimists’ hats with extra zip ties as the good and the same old news are so close. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) highlighted their research related to disclosure linking bonus pay and performance for executives at British large corporates: “Our research suggests that the discipline of better disclosure of how bonus targets are set and met is significantly improving the link between pay and performance.” That’s the glimmer of optimism – but some caveats are in order. (A) The research only targeted bonus pay, not all components of executive pay. (B) Only 36% of FTSE companies actually fully disclose the details of the performance requirements, 36% provided some but not a complete picture while 28% opted out of disclosing anything due to perceived commercial sensitivity. The Guardian decided that was the key headline in this story. (C) The High Pay Centre’s critique also included the lack of explanation what performance entails as a metric – and cautioned that EPS (earnings per share) can be somewhat managed through share buybacks. (D) In September, the same firm had questioned whether variable pay of top executives in Britain was truly variable since the payout of bonus available has remained static for three years now, a figure that doesn’t yet increase trust that inroads have truly been made to link pay and performance.