Remuneration

Pay of FTSE-100 CEOs, and Berkeley Group

The High Pay Centre have just published their latest analysis of the pay of FTSE-100 CEOs. Their average pay is now £5.5 million and it grew by over 10% from the previous year. Stefan Stern of the High Pay Centre said "There is apparently no end yet in sight to the rise and rise of FTSE100 CEO pay packages. In spite of the occasional flurry from more active shareholders, boards continue to award ever larger amounts of pay to their most senior ...

Investment Association Tackles Executive Remuneration

The Investment Association represents institutional investors. Last week (on 26/7/2016) their Executive Remuneration Working Group issued ten recommendations for how to "rebuild trust in pay". They claim to have consulted 360 investors, asset owners and company employees before producing their final report. One of their objectives is to simplify pay structures while improving the alignment of the interests of directors with those of shareholders. It is widely acknowledged that the pay of directors of public companies has got out of hand and ...

The Unacceptable Face of Capitalism – BHS and National Grid

The extraction by Sir Philip Green of £300m from BHS, which led to the business going into decline and leaving the company pension scheme under-funded before he sold it for a £1 to an unqualified chancer was strongly criticised by a select committee of the House of Commons yesterday. To quote from their report: "The tragedy is that those who have lost out are the ordinary employees and pensioners. This is the unacceptable face of capitalism". This echoes the comments of Ted ...

NewRiver Retail (NRR) Reconstruction and Complex Pay Scheme

NewRiver Retail announced before their AGM on the 12th July that they were going to change their domicile from Guernsey to the UK. This will assist with their move...

May The Force Be With You

That is surely an appropriate headline to follow the selection of Theresa May as Prime Minister designate. That was particularly so when she promised to attack the company "fat cats" and vested interests. Specifically for investors she said that "The people who run big businesses are supposed to be accountable to outsiders, to non-executive directors, who are supposed to ask the difficult questions, think about the long term and defend the interests of shareholders. As we have seen time and time again, ...

Whitbread AGM Report – More Fun Than Lloyds?

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

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

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

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

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 ...