Shareholders ready to show their hand over executive pay

Alors rébellion ou pas des actionnaires ? Alors que les documents des entreprises commencent à être rendus publics (pour des raisons de sollicitation de procuration), les chiffres de la rémunération des hauts-dirigeants le sont tout autant ! Faut-il croire aux propos optimistes des journalistes du Financial Times (« Shareholders ready to show their hand over executive pay« ) ?

It will not be a quiet season. Investors have already won several small victories, forcing some UK companies to backtrack on pay decisions. Now they have the scent of blood.

This month global companies including BP and some of the biggest UK banks will divulge how much they awarded top executives last year, setting the scene for potentially fractious showdowns with investors.

Last year, a majority of investors rejected plans at seven of the biggest US companies and three of the UK’s largest groups. This year is expected to be an even bigger rebellion.

(…) A new mood on executive awards has already swept through Europe. Last year investor support for pay proposed by German companies dropped from 90 per cent to 76 per cent for large companies.

Opposition has also increased in the Netherlands, Switzerland and France “because executive pay is seen to have become excessive,” says Georgina Marshall, head of research at voting adviser, ISS. The outlier is the US where more than three-quarters of proposals won 90-plus per cent support last year. However, even there criticism of excessive rewards is mounting.The mood in the UK has become particularly tense, however. There were as many shareholder revolts against UK pay plans last year as there were during 2012’s so-called “shareholder spring”, according to Manifest data.

À la prochaine…

Ivan Tchotourian

Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 31 mars 2017 à 13 h 06 min.