Standard Chartered PLC (LON: STAN) have announced that the pension allowance for their Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer will be cut following discussions with shareholders.
Bill Winters and Andy Halford who are CEO and CFO respectively, will see their pension allowance cut after shareholders informed the board of their concerns in the Annual General Meeting in May.
The leadership of Winters and Halford has produced success, as Standard Chartered reported strong third quarter gains at the end of October.
This was a particularly impressive achievement considering the state of the global banking industry
Where competitors such as Lloyds (LON: LLOY) and HSBC (LON: HSBA) saw their third quarter profits sink, Standard Chartered and Bank of Ireland (LON: BIRG) made steady headways.
At the AGM, 37% of shareholders voted against the resolution to approve the Asia-focused bank’s remuneration report, while all other resolutions were passed with 90% or higher votes in favour.
After discussions with concerned shareholders, the Committee has made several changes to the remuneration of certain executive directors.
This includes changing the contractual terms for Winters and Halford, reducing their pension allowance from 20% of salary from 10% of salary with effect from the start of 2020.
Winters’s pension allowance will be reduced by 50% to £237,000 from £474,000, while Chief Halford’s pension allowance will also be cut by 50% to £147,000 from £294,000.
“I would like to thank Bill and Andy for their willingness to agree to these changes and to thank our shareholders and their representatives for engaging constructively with the Remuneration Committee, and for the strong support that they share with the board for our executive directors. The changes we are making will align the current executive directors’ pension allowances with other UK employees with effect from January 1, 2020,” said Christine Hodgson, chair of StanChart’s Remuneration Committee.
Shares in FTSE100 (INDEXFTSE: UKX) dipped 0.38% to 730p as a result of this announcement. 8/11/19 13:24BST.
