Brewin’s top of the league at Chelsea May 22, 2012 CITY investment management firm Brewin Dolphin’s garden at the Chelsea Flower Show has won a gold medal for being the best in the show, which is great news for those participating in the firm’s online charity auction. The auction, which will raise funds to help the fight against leukaemia, includes a prize that gives the [...]
Tesco chief turns down £372,000 bonus May 22, 2012 Tesco boss Philip Clarke has opted not to take an annual bonus of about £372,000 following a poor performance by the world’s third-biggest retailer in its main British market. Shares in Tesco, which issued a shock profit warning in January, have lost almost a quarter of their value this year and the company is now [...]
Shell could be next victim of anti-pay vote May 20, 2012 ROYAL Dutch Shell, which holds its general meeting tomorrow, could be the next victim of the investor revolution that is sweeping through City boardrooms. Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) has urged shareholders to vote against the oil giant’s remuneration report, which more than doubled Shell chief executive Peter Voser’s total pay to £9.4m in [...]
Evidence of revolt at every single level May 20, 2012 THE shareholder spring has sprung. Since proxy season started, we’ve become accustomed to the sight of investors giving directors a bloody nose. I’ve decided to crunch the numbers to see just how rebellious the buy side has become. A win is a win. Just three firms have been voted down at their annual meetings in [...]
Aviva will take rest of year to find new CEO May 17, 2012 AVIVA yesterday admitted it will take the rest of 2012 to find a new chief executive, as it announced it had seen a five per cent drop in life insurance sales for the first quarter. Andrew Moss, the insurer’s former boss, last week became the highest-profile casualty of the shareholder spring when he quit after [...]
Aviva sales fall May 17, 2012 Insurer Aviva said the search for a new chief executive would take the rest of the year as it reported a 5 percent drop in life insurance sales, reflecting tough conditions in its key European markets. The insurer, whose CEO Andrew Moss quit last week amid investor discontent over its underperforming shares, had long term [...]
Miners help extend FTSE 100 losses as Greek talks fail May 15, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares extended losses yesterday, led by the mining sector as the cloud looming over the Eurozone darkened after Greek politicians failed to form a government, denting sentiment and the outlook for global growth. London’s blue chip index fell 0.5 per cent to 5,437.62, adding to the previous session’s two per cent drop, with [...]
Shareholder spring targets UBM board pay May 14, 2012 THE SHAREHOLDER spring yesterday hit another leading firm as media group UBM announced it had narrowly avoided defeat on its executive pay deal. More than 47 per cent of investors failed to back the directors’ remuneration report, a result that would have been considered extraordinary before a recent spate of shareholder rebellions against pay levels [...]
THE TIPSTER Aviva shedding profits and chief execs May 14, 2012 TO lose a chief executive is always rather unfortunate, but Aviva’s long-suffering shareholders must be hoping that Andrew Moss’s departure will allow the company to begin a recovery operation, but any effort will be long and involved. A possible sale of the non-life insurance operations might help shore up the capital base, but the group’s [...]
TUC: Only workers’ reps can rein in excessive bosses pay May 13, 2012 MOVES to give shareholders binding votes over executive pay do not go far enough, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) claimed today. The labour body believes that workers should sit on remuneration committees in order to “introduce a touch of the real world to the process of setting top pay.” Growing shareholder anger at poor business [...]