City Press reports that four of the largest local fund managers have fought against the excessive pay of company executives through their voting on pay resolutions at shareholder meetings and meetings with the boards of these companies.
A PwC report on executive director remuneration has revealed the voting patterns of six of these funds over the remuneration policies of JSE-listed companies in the period from 1 September last year to 6 May this year. The Public Investment Corporation voted against 44.9% of such remuneration policies, Old Mutual (37%), Allan Gray (28.6%) and Coronation Fund Managers (20.9%). Yet, Investec Asset Management and StanLib Asset Management were a lot more supportive of executive remuneration and both voted against only 6.5% of remuneration policy resolutions. Robert Lewenson of Old Mutual Investment Group commented: “The key question we ask is not so much what the amount of pay is but rather whether there is a clear link between the business performance of the company and the way it remunerates its executives.” He added that Old Mutual would argue for changes to legislation to provide for better rights for shareholders over executive remuneration. Allan Gray’s Andrew Lapping said that worldwide there had been a substantial inflation in executive pay and more JSE executives were overpaid than underpaid. “There is often very little correlation between performance and pay,” he claimed.
- Read this City Press report by Lesetja Malope & Justin Brown in full at Fin24
- See too, CEOs earn R68,000 a day, says PwC report, at Business Report
- And also, CEOs of SA's biggest firms earn 64 times the salary of average workers, at Fin24
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page