Boardwatch
Paying more, getting less
May 2011
Executive salaries are set to be 214 times the average wage by 2020, reports the High Pay Commission. Hardly needs additional comment. The final report is out in the Autumn of 2011. Stay tuned.
The Problem with capitalism Pt 424 - revisited
08 May 2011
The directors collectively known as the Phoenix Four, who bought MG Rover for £10 in 2000, and then set about systematically looting the company for £40m in salary and pensions contributions whilst killing it and costing 6,000 people their jobs, have finally got their comeuppance.
Yes, they have voluntarily been disqualified to be directors in companies until until 2017. A spokesman for the four said, "They have no intention of holding company office in the UK... while emphatically not accepting any allegations or suggestions of wrong-doing."
Take that, Phoenix Four.
The Problem with capitalism Pt 564
19 April 2011
UK Coal revealed an annual loss of £124.6m for 2010. The company's Chairman described this as the culmination of, "three years of unacceptable performance in a row" as it brought total losses for this period to £269.3 million.
Yet, directors received bonuses totaling more than £200,000 and shit-canned CEO Jon Lloyd picked up a cheque for £435,000 on his way to the back of the dole queue.
Pay restraint welcomed from HSBC
15 April 2011
HSBC's crackdown on excessive boardroom pay has been broadly welcomed in the City. Steps have been taken to limit CEO Stephen Gulliver's pay up to a modest £12.5m a year. Yes, that's right - limited to just £12.5 million, folks. Says Guy Jubb of Standard Life Investments, "It demonstrates that HSBC has taken to heart the lessons from the banking crisis and provides a platform to reward and incentivise prudential and profitable growth."
Isn't that just fucking awesome.
The Nuns vs. Lloyd Blankfein
4 April 2011
Ah, how could we not come back to Lloyd Blankfein?
The CEO of Goldman Sachs, famously up for the i'd charge you a tenner to piss on you if i saw you on fire award, has come in for stick from, believe it or not, four orders of nuns, despite the investment bank doing, "God's work."
As surreal as it sounds, the four orders have put their names to a proposal for Goldman Sachs to review executive pay after the five most senior bankers were collectively awarded $69.5m (£43m) in 2010.
US CEOs see 27% pay rises in 2010
1 April 2011
It isn't just the UK's CEOs who have come through hard times with their fortunes intact, reports USA Today. The good times are back for their US peers as well, who saw a median increase in their compensation of 27% to $9 million in 2010.
Up, up and away
22 March 2011
Despite profits falling at online auction giant Ebay, CEO John Donahoe received a 22% pay rise, earning $12.4 million (equivalent to £7.5 million). This included $245,655 under "other compensation" which in this case was use of the company plane. Nice.
42% of US millionaires feel poor
14 March 2011
Slightly off-topic, but a survey of US millionaires with $1m in cash to invest in shares (so their personal wealth will be higher if you include property and so on) found that 42% of them didn't feel rich. It takes at least $7.5m for that. Its because they feel poor compared to millionaire peers.
So if you wonder why the rich want to get richer, that's a part of it. I guess someone like, say Sir Philip Green, worth a paltry GB £4bn probably feels poor compared to someone like Bill Gates, so he avoids taxation.
