Remuneration

Whitbread AGM Report – More Fun Than Lloyds?

Post Date: June 23, 2016

The Whitbread Annual General Meeting took place at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster on the 21st June. This was one of the few FTSE-100 AGMs I have attended where the Chairman seemed to pay good attention to the views of private shareholders rather than considering it a tedious 2 hours that had to be suffered. In addition shareholders (and I am a new one) could learn a great deal about the strategy of the company and its affairs from the meeting. ...

Berkeley Results, Pay, Brexit and AIM

Post Date: June 16, 2016

We are now definitely in the usual summer doldrums in the market, compounded by the uncertainty over Brexit. It is obvious that private investors have been taking their money...

WPP Pay and AGM Report

Post Date: June 9, 2016

So 33% of investors in WPP voted against Sir Martin Sorrell's pay package of £70 million for last year at yesterday's AGM which made him the highest paid FTSE CEO. That has been reported in the financial media as indicating strong dissatisfaction with the figure, but surely the really astonishing aspect is that obviously 66% voted in favour (and that's ignoring the abstentions). It seems 66% of the mainly institutional voters think that pay at that level is perfectly reasonable! Or perhaps ...

All FTSE-100 CEO Pay Too High

Post Date: June 8, 2016

ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight was interviewed on Bloomberg this morning (prior to the WPP Annual General Meeting). He suggested all FTSE-100 CEO pay was too high and it was damaging shareholder returns. Click on this link to see the video: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-06-08/all-ftse-100-ceo-pay-too-high-says-weight ShareSoc previously issued this press release on pay at WPP: https://www.sharesoc.org/pr79-wpp-remuneration.html and advised shareholders to vote against the Remuneration Report at the AGM. We have also recently issued our Guidelines for Remuneration in public companies which suggested pay is generally excessive in ...

ShareSoc Launches New Director Remuneration Guidelines

Post Date: May 20, 2016

ShareSoc has issued the following press release on its new Remuneration Guidelines. These Guidelines have been developed by ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight who has substantial experience in these matters, supported by other ShareSoc directors. In summary the press release said: FTSE100 CEO pay is too high. It should be less than half of current amounts. FTSE 100 CEO’s maximum bonus should be 100% of salary (currently 200% is common) and the LTIP maximum normal annual award should be 100% of salary (currently 300% is ...

Pay at WPP

Post Date: May 18, 2016

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

Post Date: April 29, 2016

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

Post Date: April 22, 2016

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

Post Date: April 18, 2016

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

Post Date: April 15, 2016

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

Post Date: April 14, 2016

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

Post Date: October 21, 2015

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 ...

Remuneration

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