Who cares what the shareholders think?
Excessive executive pay has rightly been under the spotlight this year, and hot on the heels of the ‘Shareholder Spring’ is Business Secretary Vince Cable’s long-awaited review. The aim of transparency and approval is laudable, but the whole exercise is misguided. Who cares what the shareholders think? What about the real stakeholders? Shareholders are only interested in profit. Whether they’re city fund managers or small-holding individuals, generally, people buy shares for one reason only. To [...]