The 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 […]
Read MoreThe chief executives of the country’s largest public companies saw their pay rise by more than a third last year, far faster than most wages across the nat-ion, according to a report. The CEOs of Britain’s 30 richest companies – those with a market value of more than £10bn – received pay rises of 33 […]
Read MoreThe average executive at one of the UK’s top 102 companies can retire at 60 on a final salary pension worth over £3m – enough to provide, at a pension of £193,000 a year, more than 25 times the average occupational pension, research by the TUC has revealed. The union group’s survey revealed that the […]
Read MoreVernon Sankey has stepped down as chairman of Photo-Me International with immediate effect, prompting the photo booth operator’s principal shareholders to withdraw an EGM requisition seeking his removal. Cycladic Capital and Principle Capital were seeking the immediate removal of both Sankey and the company’s chief executive, Serge Crasnianski. Sankey will be replaced on […]
Read MoreAer Lingus has rejected an EGM requisition request from Ryanair, stating that the aim of the meeting request was to “interfere with and frustrate the commercial and operational performance of Ryanair’s most resilient competitor”. Earlier this month Ryanair made a second call for an EGM at which shareholders would consider asking Aer Lingus’ board and […]
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