A City Revolt On Executive Pay

In the old days newspaper stories claiming a revolt was coming on executive pay could reliably be dismissed.

Here is The Guardian in 2008: Executive pay set for radical clampdown.

The Guardian used to love this story, which it ran relentlessly, for years, as executives enjoyed one of the most extraordinary booms in pay the world has ever seen.

Since 1978, CEO pay has grown by 940%, says the Economic Policy Institute.

I think this issue was one of those where The Guardian was so sure what it thought should happen, it ignored what was actually happening.

Since executive pay is voted on by very well-paid fund managers, a revolt was always unlikely.

One bunch of rich people would give the nod to another bunch of rich people. No shocks there.

And the vote is only “advisory” anyway. The CEO and the board can, and do, just ignore it if they don’t like it.

Maybe, just maybe, that is about to change.

Last year 60% of Informa shareholders voted against the pay of CEO Stephen Carter.

The same is expected this year.

With a cost-of-living crisis, and the City trying to look at least not-insensitive, there could be genuine pay revolts cropping up all over the place.

Is the City sincere about ESG investing? Does it mean it when it says it doesn’t want to be seen as out of touch?

For our Find Out Now poll today we asked:

How many times more than their average employee should a top UK CEO be paid?

How much, to the nearest £100,000, do you think the CEO of Sainsbury’s is paid?

You can see the results below.