Cairn ditches boss windfall after revolt January 24, 2012 OIL explorer Cairn Energy yesterday shelved a plan to pay founder and chairman Sir Bill Gammell £2.5m in order to quell a shareholder revolt. The decision was announced amid the wider furore over executive pay, which has led business secretary Vince Cable to draw up plans to tackle perceived boardroom excess. Gammell’s planned payment was [...]
Sparks to fly at Mitchells & Butlers annual meeting January 22, 2012 THE BOARDROOM drama continues at pub group Mitchells & Butlers this week, with all five directors up for re-election at its AGM in Birmingham on Thursday. The AGM follows renewed criticism of the board by Pirc and the Association of British Insurers, which last week raised concerns that M&B is the only FTSE 350 firm [...]
Mitchell & Butlers gets warning over directors January 18, 2012 PUB GROUP Mitchell & Butlers has been issued a “red top” warning by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), due to concerns stemming from the British company’s position as the only FTSE 350 firm without any independent non-executive directors. ABI’s highest-level alert comes days before Mitchell & Butlers’ general meeting, scheduled for next Thursday, when [...]
Meccano-set towers: how London offices are evolving January 15, 2012 JE ne regrette rien. That is the message from Chris Grigg when we discuss his decision to quit banking in 2008 to take the reins at commercial property giant British Land. At the time, many in the City thought the former head of Barclays’ commercial bank was simply quitting one troubled industry for another; his [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 12, 2012 Association of British Insurers The ABI board has appointed Robert Talbut, chief investment officer of Royal London Asset Management, as chairman of the ABI investment committee. Previously the committee’s deputy chairman, he takes over from Alain Dromer, CEO of Aviva Investors. Talbut is a member of the Listing Authority advisory committee and an alternate on [...]
Hoban says Solvency II likely to start a year late December 8, 2011 TOUGH new insurance industry regulation is highly likely to be brought into effect a year later than first planned, Treasury secretary Mark Hoban told an industry conference yesterday. Hoban said European governments and insurance groups were broadly agreed that new Solvency II capital rules for insurers should take effect in 2014 rather than 2013. “There [...]
VINCE CABLE CALLS FOR FAIR EXEC PAY December 7, 2011 Business secretary Vince Cable yesterday firmly backed the Association of British Insurers in its bid to curtail top pay packages. In a letter sent to top investors and FTSE 100 chairmen, he widened the focus on bank bosses and urged all big companies to make sure their top execs’ deals “are not just proportionate, fair [...]
OSBORNE TO REVEAL PAY OF 120 TOP UK BANKERS December 6, 2011 SENIOR banking executives face having their pay packages published after chancellor George Osborne unveiled a new transparency regime for the 15 largest banks operating in the UK. The Treasury says the new rules, which demand the publication of rewards given to the eight most senior non-board executives, will help investors police a bank’s “risk profile”. [...]
ABI: dividend should come before bonus December 6, 2011 A MAJOR shareholder group has slammed banks for letting executive pay get out of sync with results, in a sign of growing investor activism over the hot button issue of banker bonuses. The Association of British Insurers (ABI), whose members own some 15 per cent of FTSE 100 stock, has sent a letter to the [...]
City A.M.’s at-a-glance guide to the key points of Osborne’s mini-Budget November 29, 2011 UK ECONOMIC OUTLOOK • The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has slashed the growth forecasts it made in March. • Its central forecast for 2011 has been revised down to 0.9 per cent from the 1.7 per cent March prediction. It expects 0.7 per cent year-on-year GDP growth in 2012, instead of 2.5 per cent. [...]