Remuneration

Pay at WPP

ShareSoc has issued a press release advising investors to vote against the Remuneration Report at WPP Plc. In particular we think the pay of CEO Sir Martin Sorrell is excessive (£70 million in 2015). See https://www.sharesoc.org/pr79-wpp-remuneration.html for the full press release. This is one of several advisory notices on pay we have issued to ShareSoc Members recently. The previous ones were on Reckitt Benckiser, Anglo American and BP. It is very clear that the reforms to tackle excessive pay introduced by Vince ...

Pay at Weir, Reckitt-Benckiser and WPP

Yesterday saw Weir Group Plc defeated on pay. Both the Remuneration Report and Remuneration Policy resolutions were lost with 73% and 70% of votes AGAINST them respectively. This is a very damning blow to this FTSE-250 company which makes pumps for the mining and oil markets. The company subsequently issued a grovelling apologia for the proposals they had tried to implement which included a "stock awards" scheme that was based on share price performance rather than more direct performance criteria (such as ...

Anglo American and Pay

Following ShareSoc's recommendation to vote against the Remuneration Report at Anglo American, yesterday the company received 42% of shareholders votes AGAINST it. Other advisory bodies also recommended opposition and this is a significant snub to the board which they will have to do something about. The ShareSoc press release we issued is here: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr74angloamercian.html The Investment Association which represents institutional investors has published a report which suggests that pay in public companies is "not fit for purpose" and needs reform. This has ...

Vote Against Remuneration at RELX

ShareSoc is advising its Members to vote against the Remuneration Report resolution at the RELX Annual General Meeting on 21 April 2016. ShareSoc consider the pay of the CEO...

Persimmon AGM and Remuneration

On the same day as BP held its Annual General Meeting (AGM), and got snubbed by shareholders over its Remuneration Report, house building company Persimmon held its AGM in York. One might have expected that Persimmon would also have been attacked for its remuneration scheme, for the reasons explained below, but in reality it passed with only 9% of votes against. Indeed there was more opposition to the election of a new non-executive director, Nigel Mills, who only passed with 53% ...

BP Remuneration Vote Lost

BP had 59% of shareholders voting AGAINST the Remuneration Resolution at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 14/4/2016 (and that's ignoring the abstentions which some institutions like to use to express dissatisfaction). This is what the Chairman had to say even before the vote was cast: "We know already from the proxies received and conversations with our institutional investors that there is real concern over the directors' pay in this challenging year for our shareholders. We have always judged executive performance not ...

After the Storm, at the High Pay Centre

I attended a seminar organised by the High Pay Centre last night on the new public company pay regulations introduced two years ago. Speakers were Vince Cable who lead those changes when he was in power, and Ben Chu of The Independent, with the former promoting his new book "After the Storm". Vince covered some past history and his current concerns. That included a comment that interest rates were now lower than they had ever been before - indeed since Babylonian times ...

Corbynomics, Director Remuneration and Voting

The media is full of analyses of late of the impact of the new Labour front bench and the policies of the key players such as Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Business Secretary Angela Eagle. Mr McDonnell apparently advocates big increases in public spending, higher taxes on the wealthy, cancellation of the independence of the Bank of England and widespread nationalisations of energy companies and the railways. The Financial Times ran an editorial on 16/9/2015 suggesting that Mr McDonell's "cavalier disregard of ...

Amlin and Glencore – Market surprises, but not at Berkeley

This morning a takeover bid for insurer Amlin was announced by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance. A cash offer of 670p which represents a premium of 34.5% to last nights closing price. With Amlin having been warning for some time about increased competition in the catastrophe insurance sector, this is surely a done deal assuming they can get over any regulatory hurdles. I was going to write that unlike many mega deals the news seemed not to have leaked out in advance, but it's ...

Corbyn to tackle the High Pay issue?

You know when a challenge for the leadership of the Labour Party is becoming credible when the person gets profiled in the Financial Times. Yes Jeremy Corbyn is now heavily tipped to win the election irrespective of the allegations of "dirty tricks" by folks of both extreme left and right persuasion registering just to vote for him. But the really interesting aspect to this writer is that he has adopted a policy that might be very popular with a number of ...