Monday 23 April 2007

Update - RBS gives some ground


According to The Grauniad, Royal Bank of Scotland has graciously agreed to disclose the targets that will be used in the share option scheme. It had previously expected shareholders to vote to adopt it without these being disclosed.

A welcome move but surely far too late? The AGM is on Wednesday, with the voting deadline today. That means that surely most institutions will have cast their votes before this latest development?

The vote will be interesting since, from a very mainstream corporate governance perspective, what the company is doing is probably worse than BP (the ABI has 'amber-topped' RBS, whereas it let BP go through). That should imply a bigger vote against. Also one gets the impression at a bit of a desire on the part of some institutions to have another crack at exec pay. The last couple of seasons have been without serious high-profile rebellions, but behind the scenes many are concerned at the failure to rein in high pay. After the BP vote they be more willing to take a few companies to task.

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