Pay

Jeremy Corbyn pay row shows costs of bank excess

1 Dec 2017

The UK opposition leader attacked “speculators” and criticised banker pay, as UBS chief Sergio Ermotti defended it. A decade after the crisis, remuneration still fuels dissent. Shareholders' failure to rein it in has led to dismal returns. Volatile politics could be more damaging.

Fidelity gets flexible in fight with index funds

29 Nov 2017

The asset manager’s UK offshoot will charge clients a variable rate depending on how managers perform. Yet even if they do a bad job, investors could still pay over four times the rate for a passive fund. Fidelity’s model is a step forward, but fees are still coming down.

UK gender pay equality drive is too easy to skirt

30 Oct 2017

Bigger employers have less than six months to disclose any difference between how much men and women earn. Transparency is supposed to help close the gap. But Austria has tried something similar to little effect. Only the threat of eventual sanctions will make a real difference.

Morgan Stanley staff have the most to cheer about

17 Oct 2017

Rival Goldman Sachs pays its people more on average, but James Gorman’s firm has boosted comp and benefits by 9 pct this year, almost double the raise of its rival. JPMorgan bankers face a pay cut. Asset-management employees, though, can afford to pop some champagne corks.

Misbehaving CEOs can get off far too easily

21 Sep 2017

That's a lesson to draw from the case of KB Home boss Jeffrey Mezger, whose crass rant with neighbor Kathy Griffin went viral. Cutting his bonus might hurt if he received one in recent years. A more fitting penalty would be to axe his haul of stock awards worth some $2.4 mln.

UK pay clampdown places enduring faith in markets

29 Aug 2017

The government will force companies to disclose how much their CEOs are paid relative to their workers. The move to restore public faith in business relies on shareholders to hold firms to account. But past efforts to improve transparency have failed to check corporate excess.

Endowment CIO pay demands greater academic rigor

23 Aug 2017

The boss of Harvard’s $35 bln fund recently made nearly three times as much as the head of Yale's $25 bln pot despite much weaker returns. Colleges generally base compensation more on size than performance, as companies tend to do with CEOs. They should grade more carefully.

British wage mystery has non-British explanation

16 Aug 2017

The jobless rate has fallen to 4.4 percent, its lowest in over four decades, yet wage growth is tepid. Two things help explain the anomaly: a pool of people on zero-hour contracts available to switch into permanent jobs, and a surprising rise in EU nationals working in the UK.

UK CEO pay cut exposes compensation guesswork

3 Aug 2017

The average boss of a FTSE 100 company took home 17 percent less last year despite buoyant markets. Paying corporate leaders less assuages public opinion but underscores the challenge of linking pay to performance. Besides, CEOs still benefit from higher share prices.

Germany can jump growth hurdle courtesy of Brexit

27 Jun 2017

Europe’s biggest economy is expanding so quickly that there’s a growing dearth of skilled labour. The shortage may be severe enough to depress the long-term growth rate, the Bundesbank says. One way to plug the gap is to attract EU workers who no longer feel welcome in Britain.

Investors may be new killer species at SeaWorld

14 Jun 2017

They voted against the re-election of the $1.5 bln theme-park group’s chairman in an apparent rebellion over pay. It’s a stunning rebuke in the absence of a proxy fight and with a newly minted Chinese 21 pct stakeholder. Activism doesn’t always require an activist.

Political mess puts Bank of England on the spot

14 Jun 2017

Governor Mark Carney is not raising rates in response to a spike in inflation since it’s probably temporary and wages remain subdued. However, Britain’s fragile government will probably loosen fiscal policy. Though bond yields remain low, investors are showing signs of nerves.

Carmaker emissions scandal finds exec pay sequel

14 Jun 2017

Advisers have designed a hidden scheme that would let Renault-Nissan secretly pay bonuses to Chairman Carlos Ghosn and others. It’s unthinkable that such a plan can be implemented. Recent scrutiny over exhaust emissions has already shown that exploiting loopholes doesn’t pay.

Hadas: Misbehaving wages keep economists baffled

7 Jun 2017

Conventional economic theory says wages start to rise when labour markets tighten. It isn’t happening in the U.S., Britain, Japan or Germany. Many semi-plausible excuses and partial explanations have not solved the mystery. That leaves central bankers in a quandary.

Complex pay ties British companies in knots

7 Jun 2017

Tesco paid boss Dave Lewis a 142,000 pound allowance to move closer to work, while Burberry’s Christopher Bailey got a big share award at a delicate time. Both controversies are a distraction. If they kept pay simple, companies and investors could focus on more pressing issues.

Mark Carney’s inflation fight hits close to home

2 Jun 2017

Bank of England support staff are threatening to strike over a sub-inflation pay rise. Across the UK economy, rising prices are squeezing incomes. This hits the least well-off the hardest. But it would be hard for the BoE governor to undermine his efforts to keep prices in check.

Publicis pay hike shows where real power lies

1 Jun 2017

Long-time boss Maurice Lévy will receive 2.8 mln euros as chairman – more than he was paid as CEO. After 30 years in charge of the advertising group he has much to teach his successor. But his presence on the board inhibits fresh thinking at a firm that has struggled for growth.

Britain’s joyless job boom is nothing to celebrate

17 May 2017

A record three of every four working-age Britons is employed. But prices are rising faster than wages, and a post-Brexit crackdown on immigration threatens to limit further expansions in the workforce. That makes declining productivity an even bigger cause for alarm.

Review: Piketty is more stimulating when he’s wild

12 May 2017

Too much of the economist's bestseller on inequality was standard-issue theory. As a new anthology of essays on the book makes clear, much is wrong or missing in his reasoning. A critic’s call for "wild Piketty" rings true. The topic needs a broad, multi-disciplinary approach.

Hadas: Solidarity is cure to Baumol’s cost disease

10 May 2017

William Baumol showed how differences in productivity put wage pressure on artists and other inefficient workers. The economist, who died last week, was right, but his analysis was too individualistic. The challenge is to find fair ways to share out the fruits of prosperity.