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A tale of three AGMs

by Cliff Weight Last week I went to 3 AGMs. Aviva on Wednesday, 10 May in London and then Lloyds in the morning of the 11th and RBS in the afternoon, both in Edinburgh. Aviva was very well attended with about 600 people in the Queen Elizabeth Centre. There were plenty of displays of the Aviva products, lots of staff to explain them and deal with any customer issues or complaints. There were also stands explaining the business (noticeable by its absence was ...

BP PLC Remuneration Policy – ShareSoc’s comments prior to the AGM

In preparation to BP’s AGM tomorrow (17th May 2017), ShareSoc's Remuneration spokesman has prepared this post on the company’s remuneration policy and many other issues. Overall, the changes proposed by the Company,should be considered positive. The discontinuation of the matching share awards and simplification is particularly welcomed, as is the downward discretion applied by the remuneration committee during the year to reduce pay. However, even after the reduction Dudley’s aggregate incentive forward-looking opportunity could still be deemed to be excessive at 725% of ...

RBS, Akzo Nobel and Hornby

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) AGM is tomorrow and it will be interesting to see what excuses the board of directors give for rejecting the requisition of a resolution to establish a Shareholder Committee. ShareSoc believes the rejection has no sound legal basis and ShareSoc directors will raise this issue at the meeting. Another similar case is that of Akzo Nobel in Holland where Elliott Advisors have been pushing the board to consider a takeover offer from US company PPG Industries. ...

Pearson Pay Vote Lost

Shareholders in Pearson (PSON) yesterday rejected the Remuneration Report on a vote at the company's AGM. That was by 61% opposed to 32% supporting with 6% abstaining. But they approved the Remuneration Policy. Opposition to the Report seemed to be based on the fact that CEO John Fallon achieved a 20% rise in total pay despite a record loss and several profit warnings. However the share price rose on the day substantially by 12% perhaps because of a positive first quarter trading statement ...

Rolls-Royce – Audits Investigated and AGM

Yesterday (4/5/2017) I attended the Rolls-Royce (RR.) Annual General Meeting in Derby. In former years they used to hold the meetings in London but it’s been Nottingham and Derby...