Hot Issues Archives

Shareholder engagement on pay can work!

Today’s announcement by Cairn Energy that it will withdraw resolution 2 at its General Meeting next week, demonstrates that shareholders can act on egregious pay awards when they really want to.

Cairn had proposed the award of shares to Sir …

How would a super-majority support requirement impact UK Say-on-pay votes?

One of the suggestions made by Vince Cable when answering his parliamentary question in the House of Commons yesterday in relation to his proposals to address executive pay, was that the remuneration report may be subject to a higher support …

Remuneration Committee “Cronysism” – digging deeper

Since we published data on the number of executive directors in the FTSE 100 sitting on remuneration committees of other FTSE 100 companies, a common question we received was … what if you look beyond the FTSE 100? So …

Shareholder Nomination Committees – just a different form of cronyism?

Last week, in a speech at a High Pay Commission seminar, the shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna and former Business Secretary Lord Myners both put forward arguments in favour of shareholder nomination committees as a way of improving corporate governance. …

Crony capitalism or mass hysteria?

Journalists and politicians must not have enough to do in the post-Christmas dip. “Action looms to curb executive pay” proclaims the FT on January 5 the day before the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron devotes precious prime time on …

“Remunerationgate” – the median isn’t the message

Whether it’s a case of “In war, truth is the first casualty” or “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”, sound arguments for reform can easily be undone by the careless use of dodgy data to fit a chosen position.

The debate …

Aussie proxy season gets into full swing

Over 140 of the S&P/ASX 200 companies have June year ends and will hold their AGMs between late September and late November. The busiest dates for AGMs are between 24 and 28 October, with 9 & 10 November and 24 …

Manifest branches out in Australia

As Manifest continues its increase in global coverage, we are delighted to announce that from October 2011, Manifest has a branch office operating in Melbourne, Australia. We are delighted to be working with Mark Bytheway and the team at the …

Social and new media: Improving ownership?

The ICGN Conference in Paris last week included a session on the very interesting topic of new and social media, exploring what are some of the ramifications in the context of corporate governance.

Taking corporate governance in its widest sense …

Kay hopes for “not just another governance review”

Professor John Kay has formally launched his consultation exercise to examine UK equity markets and long-term decision making.

In a launch event at the National Association of Pension Funds the review team published a detailed call for evidence paper identifying …