As the Madoff and Sanford scandals have highlighted, co-operation between regulatory authorities is a crucial protection mechanism for shareholders. The news that the SEC is pulling away from its committment to work with the EU on audit inspection is therefore especially disappointing. Unlike Canada and Japan who are keen to move forward with mutual recognition […]
Read MoreChrysalis is no stranger to director payoff issues, as reported in the Daily Telegraph last year. This year’s annual report is equally revealing. During 2008 Michael Connole received compensation for loss of office of £410,000, while Richard Huntingford received compensation for loss of office of £984,000. Following settlement of the legal dispute over the potential bonus due to […]
Read MoreAs Swiss pharma giant Novartis squared up to the first of the 2009 European season’s shareholder resolutions, it looks like voting irregularities downstream may be calling the results into question. Novartis are said to be ‘furious’ at the apparent foul ups caused by the overly complicated ‘chain of intermediaries’ which have left some shareholders with […]
Read MoreThe life insurance company Tower Australia Group Ltd, held its AGM on 11 February 209 and saw significant opposition from shareholders on resolution to approve the grant of 250,000 performance share rights to MD, Jim Minto. Australian companies are required to seek approval annually for any grants proposed to be made to the executive directors. The […]
Read MoreAs the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) hearings rumble on, professional investors have been under close scrutiny. Had Alistair Darling had the foresight to tax the word ‘responsibility’, he could probably have recouped a large slice of the unprecedented sums the public purse is currently spending. Investor responsibility raises two very simple and potentially conflicting questions. […]
Read MoreManifest has recently published its findings on voting at UK shareholder meetings in 2008 and this prompted suggestions that we should make a submission to UK’s Treasury Select Committee on the Banking Crisis. The Committee is still taking evidence and we were asked to address the issue of voting at UK Bank AGMs to see […]
Read MoreWhen it comes to incentive pay schemes, it’s rare to encounter a scheme that strays from the ‘tried and trusted’ EPS and TSR performance measures. Anything that seeks to focus to a significant degree on extra-financial performance measures is for all practical purposes non-existent. As the debate on performance-related pay rumbles on, many investors are […]
Read MoreThe high-profile takeovers of ABN AMRO (by a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Banco Santander) and of Alcon by Rio Tinto have seen the acquirers scrambling to raise funding in recent months. Former RBS Chairman, Sir Tom McKillop, admitted to the Treasury Select Committee that the acquisition was “a bad mistake”, while […]
Read MoreThe Board of Satayam is understood to be taking steps to remove the Company’s auditor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, following the failure by the audit firm to detect the €1.5bn fraud. The Company has not however confirmed the move, although The Times of India reported that the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Uttam Prakash […]
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