More than one-fifth of HSBC’s shareholders opposed the bank’s pay policy on Friday in the latest show of anger that banks have not reined in bonuses enough in the wake of the financial crisis.
About 21 percent of investors who voted opposed HSBC’s vote on its pay policy for the next three years, not enough to block its plans, but representing significant opposition.
Pay is “wildly out of control,” said John Farmer, a private shareholder, at the bank’s annual meeting on Friday. “You are not as a bank delivering an impressive return. Please would you go away and rethink the issue totally.”
He rejected the bank’s claim that staff would leave if they were not paid as much as at rivals.
“If these people want to walk away, let them, and find someone else who will do the job for them,” Farmer said to applause from other investors.
Bankers’ pay is a politically sensitive issue due to public anger over bonuses paid to those seen by some as partly to blame for the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis.
HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, defended its pay and changes to structure that mean more pay is now in shares and deferred for five years, and can be clawed back if problems are spotted at a later date.
“We look very carefully outside at what’s being paid. We pay way under what the American banks pay ... we have to be careful not to destroy the business from which you get profits and dividends,” HSBC remuneration committee chairman Simon Robertson said.
HSBC attempted to take the sting out of pay criticism last week by saying it would cap any bonus paid to its chairman Douglas Flint at ￡1 million (US$1.7 million), after criticism from investors about a plan to pay him a bonus of up to ￡2.25 million.
Dutch brewing company Heineken NV yesterday said that it has reached an agreement to acquire a subsidiary brewery of Taiwan’s Sanyo Whisbih Group (三洋維士比集團). Heineken is to assume majority ownership and management rights of the Long Chuan Zuan Co (龍泉鑽興業) brewery in Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔), the Dutch company said. It would become the first multinational brewing company to operate brewery in Taiwan once the acquisition is completed. The deal has been approved by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission, but details of the financial transaction cannot be disclosed at this time, as terms of the settlement have not been completed,
Had Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck hopped on an electric scooter rather than a Vespa in the classic film Roman Holiday, their spin around the Eternal City might have ended in tears. The number of crashes and near-misses involving the two-wheelers has prompted Rome authorities to impose some order on a booming rental market that began two years ago. The havoc came to a head earlier this month when two US tourists attempted a night-time drive down the Spanish Steps, causing more than 25,000 euros (US$26,392) worth of damage to the 18th-century monument. Caught on security footage, the couple in their late 20s
LOOK WHO OWES: China’s exposure to Taiwanese banks was the second-largest, with Luxembourg third, followed by Hong Kong and Japan, the central bank said The US remained the largest debtor country to Taiwan’s banking sector for a 27th consecutive quarter in the first quarter of this year, with its exposure rising 8.3 percent from a quarter earlier on the back of an increase in US bonds, the central bank said on Friday. Data compiled by the central bank showed that outstanding international claims by Taiwanese banks on a direct risk basis to the US stood at US$125.38 billion as of the end of March. Department of Financial Inspection deputy head Pan Ya-hui (潘雅慧) said that the US Federal Reserve’s launch of a rate hike cycle in
GREEN CITY: The company is set to invest US$8 billion to make electric vehicles and batteries for a new city that would rely entirely on renewable energy sources Indonesia said that Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is considering investing in the country’s new capital city, a move that would bolster the US$34 billion construction project. Hon Hai, which is known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is looking at setting up an electric bus system and an Internet of Things network at Nusantara, as Indonesia’s new capital is to be called, Indonesian Minister of Investment Bahlil Lahadalia said in a statement yesterday. Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Saturday to discuss the company’s plan to invest US$8 billion to build a manufacturing plant
RSS