William Hill board wins knife edge vote over pay May 8, 2012 Shareholders in William Hill, Britain’s biggest bookmaker, joined a growing rebellion over executive pay, with almost half voting against a £1.2m retention bonus for the chief executive. William Hill said on Tuesday 49.9 per cent of proxy votes were against the pay package, and 50.1 per cent for. Chairman Gareth Davis declared the resolution passed [...]
Struggling miners dent FTSE May 8, 2012 The FTSE 100 dipped this morning as political uncertainty sent shockwaves across the Eurozone while heavyweight commodity stock were dented. A win by socialist Francois Hollande in the French presidential election and chaos in Greece – where no party gained enough seats to form a government – served to sap investor confidence. In London the [...]
Aviva boss quits after pay revolt May 8, 2012 Insurer Aviva, hit last week by one of the biggest pay revolts ever suffered by a British company, said its chief executive Andrew Moss had stepped down with immediate effect. The group said he would be replaced by Chairman Designate John McFarlane in the interim. Moss had told the company that he believed it was [...]
Shareholders are on the money in scrutinising pay May 7, 2012 AS LITTLE as a decade ago, few City-watchers would have cared all that much about the April AGM deluge, but not any more. In rising markets, short-term investors and speculators could ignore the niceties of shareholder democracy and vote with their feet. Several crashes later and investor uncertainty is manifesting itself through the ballot box, [...]
Easter eager to lock horns with Powell and guarantee top spot May 3, 2012 Q What happened the last time you played Sale in the Aviva Premiership? A I was at the World Cup last time but I know we won 48-41. I won money off Mark Cueto as we had a bet on the outcome but he still hasn’t paid up so I’ll ask him to show me [...]
REVOLUTION IN THE CITY May 3, 2012 SHAREHOLDERS yesterday unleashed their wrath on leading blue chip businesses with an unprecedented wave of rebellion against executive pay deals. Businesses including Aviva, UBS and Inmarsat suffered substantial rebellions against remuneration packages at AGMs held yesterday. And last night Trinity Mirror boss Sly Bailey unexpectedly handed in her notice as leading shareholders prepared to mount a [...]
City pay revolt: Long live this most capitalist of revolutions May 3, 2012 OFF with their heads: the message from shareholders is becoming louder and angrier by the day. “Listen to us”, they are rightly telling company boards, “you work for us. We pay you. Stop behaving as if you own the place.” And that’s exactly the point: CEOs are merely shareholders’ paid hands. The real capitalists are [...]
Who are the rebels? May 3, 2012 BEFORE yesterday only three FTSE 100 firms had seen their remuneration reports rejected in the nine years since shareholders gained the right to vote on such matters. But the rebellion by Aviva shareholders shows the growing tendency for major institutional investors to take an interest in executive pay. The identity of voters was secret, yet [...]
Shareholder revolts don’t get much worse than this May 3, 2012 IT DOESN’T get much bigger than this. Fifty-nine per cent of shareholders refused to back Aviva’s remuneration report yesterday, either by voting against it (50 per cent) or abstaining (nine per cent). Of those who cast a ballot, 54 per cent voted against. To illustrate how bad this is for Aviva, we need to put [...]
SHARE PRICE FALLS THAT GOT INVESTORS WORRIED May 3, 2012 TRINITY MIRROR Shares have plunged more than 90 per cent in the 10 years since Sly Bailey took charge of the company. The group owns the Daily Mirror plus more than 100 regional newspapers – but has a market cap of just £82m. AVIVA Investors are angry because the insurer’s shares have fallen 58 per [...]