Unlike the best romantic stories, this proposal was expected, grounded in practicalities and wholly lacking in passion. Part of it was borne from the principle that pension trustees and investment managers should develop a closer working relationship. The Need for a Committed Relationship Responsible investment and investment stewardship are hot topics at the moment in the … Continue Reading
As trailed in our recent blog post, the green paper on the reform of corporate governance was published today by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (formerly BIS). The paper sets out 14 questions for consultation. The consultation covers three main areas: executive pay, “which has grown much faster over the last two … Continue Reading
The UK Financial Reporting Council (the FRC) has just published a report entitled “Corporate Culture and the Role of Boards”. This is the result of a mammoth project kicked off in early 2015 by a round-table with FTSE100 chairmen. Content for the report was produced by a survey of 44 chairmen and 33 company secretaries … Continue Reading
The Financial Reporting Council has published a consultation on amendments to accounting standard FRS102, which deals with share-based payments (such as options) with a cash alternative. The amendments are aimed at aligning FRS102, which tends to be used by smaller companies, with the international accounting standards used by listed companies. The closing date for responses … Continue Reading
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recently released its first stand-alone UK and Ireland Proxy Voting Guidelines (previously, ISS and the NAPF issued guidelines through Research Recommendations and Electronic Voting, their joint venture which came to an end in June 2014). The guidelines apply to shareholder meetings held on or after 1 February 2015. In the area of … Continue Reading
The pressure for companies and firms to claw back earnings paid to executives under various incentive plans has been steadily growing over the last couple of years. There was the clarification in the ABI guidelines on directors’ remuneration on which we reported last November, to PIRC’s two penn’orth on the topic in March, the Bank … Continue Reading
The Financial Reporting Council announced on 17 September the release of the updated version of the Corporate Governance Code, after its consultation in April about proposed amendments to the sections on remuneration. There has been a good deal of shuffling sentences about, but there are two main changes that will need to be taken into account by companies for … Continue Reading
At the same time as all the publicity about Dr Vince Cable’s appeals to FTSE100 companies for executive pay restraint, the FRC has published the responses to its consultation last autumn about proposed changes to the UK Corporate Governance Code. A sizeable chunk of these focus on directors’ remuneration and the FRC is consulting further on these … Continue Reading
