Can you hear it? Me neither. Where is the roar of protest from big City investors against the monstrous payout housebuilding company Persimmon is handing to its boss, Jeff Fairburn? The sum involved – a complete of £800 million of shareholders’ money going into the pouches of mature managers – is stupendous by any yardstick. Plenty of people have said Mr Fairburn doesn’t be worthy of his £100 million-plus prize because it hasn’t sprung from his own genius, but from a talk about price bloated by Help to Buy. It’s actually a lot worse than that: it’s the consequence of a rookie error.
When they were designing the structure, the chairman and the seat of the pay committee forgot to place a ceiling on rewards – an omission that they have rightly tendered their resignations. However it about came, this is a transfer of prosperity from traders to employees with an unprecedented size in corporate and business Britain.
So much so, that the Persimmon Package amounts to a perverse form of socialism. Capital is being expropriated by a group of employees – albeit pretty high-ranking ones – from the owners. We realize shareholders are upset – why else would the chairman and his colleague have offered to resign?
- Specific buy/sell suggestions
- Overall responsibility for Design standard websites and UI construction
- IShares Canada – Energy (XEG), Materials (XMD) and Gold (XGD)
- How comfortable you are with investment risk
- No negetiation is held between the client and the branch to purchase goods
- An investment that results 10% each year for the full 30 years
- Solicitation rights
Share But what have they to say in public about this egregious incentive system, which in the long run is paid for out of our savings and pensions? Nothing. Rien. Nichts. Nada. Or even to be purely accurate, a peep barely. Royal London has dished out a tongue-lashing – done well – but it only has a tiny shareholding.
By comparison, Blackrock, which is the world’s biggest finance manager, has a substantial stake in Persimmon, and a lot of clout. Year This time last, the US large was playing the responsible investor cards with gusto, writing characters to the chairmen of each company in the FTSE 350 and warning them to act themselves on pay.
It even spelled out its perception that pay committees should have discretion to ‘make modifications’ for ‘unintended final results’, a stricture that is apt for Persimmon entirely. We are told Blackrock is likely to challenge the share scheme, but it, and other shareholders including Aberdeen Asset Management, are not saying anything publicly. If ever there was a perfect time to denounce unjustified rewards loud and clear, this could it be.
It is all far too mealy-mouthed. The Investment Association, which is meant to be the industry mouthpiece against such rewards, recently started drawing up a naughty set of companies where 20 per cent of shareholders got protested against executive excess. Remarkably, Persimmon will not make it to the list because few traders revolted too. One City establishment figure who has spoken out is Stephen Martin, the boss of the Institute of Directors.