The European Commission has published its formal proposal for the much-leaked update to the 2007 Shareholder’s Rights Directive. It forms a part of the “road map” for the Commission’s 2012 company law and corporate governance action plan which is aimed at “enhancing transparency and engaging shareholders”. The draft directive identifies 5 specific objectives: Improvement of […]
Read MoreEven more than its predecessors, Manifest and MM&K’s Total Remuneration Survey 2013 (May edition) deservedly earned headlines and an impressive array of coverage in the press after the launch earlier this week (even making it into Vogue, which must be a first for corporate governance research?!). However, one very important point which we made deserves particular […]
Read MoreAre executive pay peer group benchmarks the new credit ratings? New research from the Investor Responsibility Research Centre Institute (IRRCi) suggests that over-dependence on peer group benchmarking for setting executive pay is the root cause of pay inflation in the USA and that a holistic, business-centric approach to setting reward is needed by boards, investors and regulators, […]
Read MoreVince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, this week announced the latest government consultation on executive pay, this time aimed specifically at enhancing shareholder voting rights on the matter. The consultation seeks opinions on the following outline policy proposals: An annual binding vote on future remuneration policy Making the vote on future […]
Read MoreToday’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 Bill Gammell with a value of £2.5m (based on average closing share price for the […]
Read MoreSince 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 we have re-run the numbers, looking at the FTSE All-Share (i.e. FTSE 100, FTSE 250 […]
Read MoreRemuneration Committees are struggling to maintain their independence from their CEOs and are adopting increasingly expensive, short-term reward strategies according to the latest Manifest and MM&K Total Remuneration Survey. The Executive Director Total Remuneration Survey 2011 examines the latest crop of remuneration reports of UK companies finding little link between remuneration, performance and shareholder value. Although the […]
Read MoreThere can be little argument with suggestions that the dynamics of the Remuneration Committee are crucial to ensuring a balanced approach on executive pay issues. Indeed there may be value for shareholders in an amendment to the UK Corporate Governance Code in relation to the diversity of the committee. Many of the worst-performing remuneration committees […]
Read MoreJust what is the most appropriate level of executive pay and what is the best approach to aligning interests between executives and shareholders? This little gem of an extract comes from a submission to Australia’s Productivity Commission made in 2009 by Ian Crichton of CRA Plan Managers, a remuneration consultant, may provide some insight. “I […]
Read MorePROXY Governance and the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRCi) today released a new study, “Compensation Peer Groups at Companies with High Pay” that identifies a subset of S&P 500 companies with high pay that is not aligned with high performance. The data reveals that high executive pay companies self-select larger than appropriate peers – […]
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