Listed firms need public flogging January 31, 2020 The £18.5 trillion in assets managed by members of the Investor Forum would cover a fair few shopping trips to Poundland, and buy its parent’s shares hundreds of times over — but will public market shareholders get the chance? That’s one of the questions indirectly prompted by the forum’s latest annual review, which highlights the [...]
Flybe rescue secrecy is absurd January 17, 2020 So much for open government. It shouldn’t be too much to expect the ministry responsible for the public finances to disclose the potential liability to taxpayers of a private company bailout. Yet in the Treasury’s statement about the government-backed rescue of the regional airline Flybe this week, there was scant detail and even fewer numbers. [...]
Ted Baker needs a dose of urgent first aid December 13, 2019 Oh, the irony. David Bernstein was in Switzerland in his capacity as chairman of the British Red Cross when he took a phone call ousting him as chairman of Ted Baker on Monday evening. Forget the Red Cross: it’s the fashion retailer which requires emergency aid. In the nine months since founder Ray Kelvin quit [...]
Investors should restrict ire over pay deals November 29, 2019 Talk about picking your moment. Provoking a pay row with your shareholders in the middle of a General Election campaign in which the Labour party has zeroed in on income inequality looks crass — so Bovis Homes Group’s executives shouldn’t be surprised if a few arrows are fired in their direction by would-be MPs early [...]
Galliford Try joins the Winters of discontent October 31, 2019 Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group, Aviva and BT Group: even the Investment Association (IA) must have been surprised by the rich seam of targets it uncovered when it launched a campaign to curb the lavish pension perks enjoyed by the chief executives of listed companies. A quarter of FTSE 100 bosses have seen their pension [...]
BP drills closer to home than Tesco for new CEO October 4, 2019 If the benchmark for CEO succession planning is to have a slate of credible internal candidates ready to take the helm when a veteran boss retires, this week’s news suggests that BP deserves plaudits and Tesco brickbats. In reality, the situation at the two companies is more nuanced, but both the impending departures of Bob [...]
M&S’s FTSE exit is a symbol of its terminal decline September 6, 2019 Archie Norman, the Marks & Spencer chairman, put a brave face this week on the retailer’s demotion from the FTSE 100. Nothing to see here, he said: the business was exactly the same on the day after its relegation. Focusing on it was the reddest of herrings. In a sense, he is right – but [...]
The world’s local bank has a new boss on its doorstep August 9, 2019 It is just 4.3 miles from One Canada Square, HSBC Holdings’ headquarters, to 20 Gresham Street, the home of Lloyds Banking Group. How fitting, then, that “the world’s local bank” should have no further to look than its near-neighbour for its next chief executive. Mark Tucker, HSBC’s chairman, cautioned this week that his search for [...]
Lloyds’ away win piles pressure on Skeoch July 26, 2019 A score draw? For Standard Life Aberdeen, that’s probably an overly generous classified check after the final whistle on its £109bn fund management dispute with Lloyds Banking Group. It’s hard not to look at the result as anything other than a come-from-behind victory for Britain’s biggest high street lender instead. The £140m cash sum it [...]
Vodafone rings cynical tone with token gesture on executive pay July 12, 2019 Talk about a late call. By the time Vodafone signalled a concession this week over long-term share awards granted to its top executives, the damage had already been done. The “voluntary request” (a phrase underlining the City’s talent for tortured tautology) made by Nick Read and Margherita Della Valle has stuck in the craw of [...]
