Remuneration

Insurance companies and Kentz

With the attack by the Government on annuities in the budget and the revelation that the FCA is to look into the treatment of some policyholders such as those in "closed" funds, both investors in these companies and their directors must be somewhat incensed. Indeed the Financial Times reported this morning that half a dozen of the City's top institutional investors have consulted a leading law firm over alleged "market abuse" in the way the latter review was disclosed. It seems ...

Remuneration Policies and Baronsmead VCT 3

The new Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act requires public companies to take a vote on Remuneration Policy, i.e. a forwarded looking binding vote for the next three years, as opposed to the non-binding retrospective one on the Remuneration Report with which we are all familiar. The latter will still be present, and investors might worry that the former will be a long-winded and tedious document that they will need to plough through (rather like the multi-page Remuneration Reports from large companies). There have ...

Barclays – Who benefits?

Barclays Bank announced their final results yesterday. The results did not match expectations and the shares fell 4% on the day. The national media led with the story that the company had still increased the bonus pool even so, and that the company now pays out more in bonuses than it pays in dividends to shareholders. The CEO, Antony Jenkins,  gave the usual excuse for the high pay levels - that they need to compete on the international scene for top class ...

A Christmas present for the kids, and goodwill from Avocet directors

The Government has announced that it will allow Child Trust Funds to be transferred to Junior ISAs. The investment returns and charges on Child Trust Funds compare poorly with those available in ISAs so this is a welcome move. The only reservation is that it may not be possible to implement this until April 2015.Avocet Mining, a gold mining and exploration company, have also got into the spirit of the season by announcing that the fees paid to the Chairman and ...

Are AIM tech company directors underpaid?

Grant Thornton have published a report which says that AIM technology company directors do not pay themselves as much as in other AIM companies. Author Amanda Flint suggests the former might feel themselves undervalued and move elsewhere.According to the report, the average total pay package for AIM technology company chief executives was £383,000 last year. That is less than half the average pay across all sectors. And only 36% of technology CEOs received share-based awards compared with 60% of main market ...

Directors’ Pay and Galliford Try – Apathy reigns

The pay of directors in FTSE100 companies continues to power ahead. Up 14% in the past year according to Income Data Services, based on median total remuneration.  This is six times more than the average earnings of all employees. The large increase has been driven by rises in the value of LTIPs (typically share-based pay-outs based on performance measures). These payments are often not at all obvious in Remuneration Reports at present. A good example is Galliford Try, the building company, whose AGM ...

City of London Investment Group (CLIG) – a confusing AGM today

City of London Investment Group (CLIG)  – a confusing AGM today I’ll try to tell you briefly “the way it was” to paraphrase the CEOs introduction to his section of the Annual Report. A full report is available here. Barry Olliff is the CEO and this company has succession problems just like Carpetright which was covered in my last blog post. Likewise, they are back at square one after losing a new CEO appointed at the end of 2012, but who departed with ...

New pay rules, and MS International

Yesterday was the dawn of a new era. The rules that impose the requirement of a binding, forward-looking vote on remuneration at UK listed companies came into force. Also there will be much clearer information provided on total remuneration, making it easy both to compare the figures with those of other companies and decide whether you like the numbers. It might not totally solve the problem of excessive director pay in FTSE-100 companies, but it is at least a step in the ...

FTSE100 pay still not under control

Remuneration consultants MM&K have reported that the total remuneration of FTSE100 chief executives has risen by 5% over the past year, to £4.4 million. That compares with not much more than 1% for all employees in the country. But MM&K do suggest that future earnings might be slightly moderated with “future awards” and bonuses down and salaries only up by 2.5 per cent.Comment: a lot of investors would like to see the overall remuneration cut not by 1%, or by 5%, ...

Share Options and Perverse Incentives (Nokia and Elop)

Outrage about the amount Stephen Elop is getting (Euros 18.8m) for selling the mobile phone part of Nokia to Microsoft extends from the Finnish Prime Minister to the editor of the Financial Times. It is not helped by the fact that Mr Elop left Microsoft to join Nokia as CEO, and is now returning to them. Mr Elop did not manage to really revive the mobile side of Nokia while he was there, although some might say he established a base ...

Diageo votes at AGM – more opposition

This morning Diageo announced their voting results from the poll at their AGM on the previous day. Isn’t it annoying when the poll is not declared at the meeting so shareholders cannot question the board on the results? But that aside, they got 11.8% against the Remuneration Report, up from 7.5% last year. This rather reflects the complaints in the meeting itself about the general level of remuneration in such large FTSE-100 companies. It seems likely that last year’s figures were somewhat ...