Stockholders do NOT approve Pay of WPP's CEO Sorrell

Another twist in the never-ending quest of the WPP management led by CEO Sorrell. Are they really so desperate to receive every Penny they can get their hand on? What do they have to prove? But apart from this question - which is more a subject for a psychology site - one can say one thing: the REAL shareholders of WPP - or any other listed company - are usually not the ones that approve the one-sided and completely unnecessary 'incentive' schemes that inflate executive pay for the 0.1% that design their own 'compensation' schemes. In fact, their fiduciaries, large investment institutions such as Pension Funds, Investment Management firms and Mutual Fund Manager as well as Private Banks are the ones that wave these schemes through. They should stand up and be counted and not hide behind spurious 'governance statements' or - even worse - proxy advisers that are just an extra cost for the investors and responsible to no one. 'Best Business Principles' for Proxy firms may have been released just recently, but again they basically are designed by insiders for insiders.
(26 June 2014)

How to streamline Governance 'Clutter'?

Any student of the Corporate Governance debate that has evolved during the past 30 plus years (especially here in the UK) will sometimes be confused by all the different codes that have been published. So a call to 'clean up this clutter' by a prominent participant (Guy Jubb, Standard Life Investments) in the current governance debate has to be welcomed. But this leads again to the key problem: who shall be in charge of setting the governance code, shall it be the companies themselves, the investment institutions, government or the real investors themselves? And that still leaves out the 100 pound gorilla that dominates so much voting on corporate and governance issues, the proxy advisers.
(10 June 2014)

Minority Investors get better protection in UK markets

While not necessarily enough, the new  rules for 'premium' listings are a step in the right direction. But are they enough?
(2 June 2014)