Remuneration

Unhappy Shareholders at Sea Energy, Vislink and Blinkx

Perhaps it was the hot weather, or that folks have more time to spare in the summer holiday season, but shareholders in three smaller companies have been stirred to complain about a variety of issues mainly focussed on pay and overhead costs. Sea Energy Stuart Stafford has formed a Shareholder Action Group for investors in Sea Energy. See this web site for more details and to register an interest: https://seashareholderactiongroup.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/action-group/ His main complaints are about 1) Exorbitant central costs which destroy shareholder value; 2) ...

The Wonders of LTIPs, Pay at WPP and the Sprue Aegis AGM

Yesterday (3/6/2015), I attended the Annual General Meeting of Sprue Aegis (SPRP). Before discussing what was said at that meeting, it's worth reviewing a recently issued report by the High Pay Centre entitled "No Routine Riches".  It's a devastating critique of how the existing systems of "performance related pay" for directors has worked. To quote from the report: "We have looked at the growing complexity of awards that has pushed directors’ pay into the stratosphere, and found there is little discernible link ...

Alliance Trust Stocktrade Acquisition and Sexism in the City

Yesterday (15/5/2015), Alliance Trust announced the acquisition of the Stocktrade service from Brewin Dolphin which will be integrated into the Alliance Trust Savings (ATS) subsidiary. The acquisition will cost ATS £14 million, and that cost plus an additional £8m of regulatory capital will be funded by the parent company with an injection of equity. This move will anger many shareholders of Alliance Trust who have expressed concerns about the expansion plans for the Alliance Trust subsidiaries, the capital required and the ...

Shareholder voting, remuneration and BG Group

Manifest, a proxy advisory service, have reported on the voting at Annual General Meetings recently. It was good to read that there was significant opposition to the change to 14 days notice at the General Meetings of both Arm and Anglo-American - 18% at the latter and even higher at the former. This commonly arises where there are substantial overseas holders who find difficulty in getting in their proxy votes in time because of the complexity of the voting chain. But ...

Shell & BG Group Deal – Not Everyone’s Happy

(Pay packages and short termism at BG Group and Amec Foster Wheeler) Shareholders in BG Group should surely be happy. The offer from Shell values their shares at about £13.50 per share which is a premium of 50% to that which they have recently been trading. Although investors will get most of the value in Shell shares which means they will still be holding shares in the depressed oil and gas sector. An indication that perhaps not all investors are happy is ...

High Pay Centre Launch Fat Cat Competition

The High Pay Centre have launched a competition to emphasise the huge amounts now paid to the Chief Executives of large public companies. It's called the Fantasy Fatcat competition and you can enter it here: http://highpaycentre.org/fantasy-fatcat . All you need to do is predict which CEOs will have raked in the most money and which bank will have the biggest team of bankers sucking the most cash from the casino economy. You have £35 million to spend to pick 5 CEOs and ...

ShareSoc Welcomes BG Group Decision but calls on Sir John Hood to Resign

ShareSoc is delighted by today’s news that BG Group has decided to withdraw the conditional share award that was proposed for new CEO Helge Lund. This is a good illustration of active shareholders being able to influence corporate policy and restrain abuses. However, today’s announcement, including acceptance by Mr Lund of the revised terms, clearly demonstrates that the original proposal was excessive and unwarranted. It is obvious that insufficient consultation with shareholders had been conducted before the proposed package was announced, as ...

BG Group EGM on pay award to new CEO

BG Group - A personal view by ShareSoc director, Mark Bentley BG Group will be holding an EGM on 15th December to consider a resolution to approve a “Conditional Share Award” for newly appointed CEO Helge Lund. Details can be found here: http://www.bg-group.com/assets/files/cms/2014Meeting_ShareholderCircular.pdf Mr Lund’s appointment was announced on 15 October 2014, taking effect from 2 March 2015. He has served as CEO of Statoil, the Norwegian oil and gas company, since August 2004. Prior to Statoil, Mr Lund was the CEO of ...

Progress on the Kay Review

Back in 2011 the Government commissioned Prof. John Kay to review the operation of UK stock markets. There were concerns about "short-termism" by investors, poor corporate governance in companies, excessive executive pay, lack of engagement by investors with companies, high investment charges and excessive intermediation in the investment chain. The resulting report was a very good analysis of the defects in the way the market operated and the recommendations in the report for change were generally accepted by the Government. The Government ...

Directors Pay Up 21%

There can be no clearer indication that the pay of company directors is out of control than the latest figures from Income Data Services (IDS). They have reported that the total remuneration of FTSE-100 company directors went up by 21% last year, based on figures in the annual reports of companies. Although base salaries only rose by 2.5%, the overall increase has been driven by “performance” awards such as bonuses and LTIPs (Long Term Incentive Plans). The 21% increase is of course ...