We're all in this together .. yeah, right!

[Supertramp]

Unless you are shareholders of any of these companies then it has nothing to do with you, yet I agree that shareholders, especially larger one should have a say, but then again these would be directors of trusts etc. and they are probably all on each other's boards so they all look out for each other.

[L00b]

In the last 12 months alone, directors pay in the 100 has rise 49%, CEOs by 46% and workers pay by 2.6% at best (many frozen or cut), which is well below the cost of living.

Do you have any idea how many more companies with directors there are in the UK?

 

Next, do you know personally any directors of such non-FTSE 100 companies?

 

Sufficiently well to know what their general pay level is?

 

I do, and can tell you that this article -if meant as a generalisation of directorship pay levels (which it appears to be, since it refers to 'workers' in very general terms)- is a gross misrepresentation of the situation in the UK in 2011.

[green]

A recent example......taken from the Guardian.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2011/oct/12/mothercare-executive-pay?INTCMP=SRCH

 

Mothercare seems very proud of the fact that Ben Gordon, whose departure as chief executive was announced yesterday by "mutual consent" after two profit warnings, will not receive a penny beyond the £600,000 he can claim contractually.

 

Ben Gordon's earnings

Year

Salary

Total remuneration

2003-04 £325,000 £688,000

2004-05 £351,000 £788,000

2005-06 £375,000 £956,000

2006-07 £475,000 £2,717,000

2007-08 £500,000 £1,624,000

2008-09 £600,000 £1,382,000

2009-10 £600,000 £6,468,000

2010-11 £600,000 £5,199,000

Total £19,822,000

Are the non-executive directors expecting praise?, Mothercare shareholders might reasonably ask. Here's a little table, compiled from the company's annual reports, showing Gordon's earnings over the years.

 

A few points should be made. First, those two bumper years at the end reflect in large part the maturing of three-year incentive schemes calculated with reference to something Mothercare calls "surplus value created."

 

In each case, roughly half the windfall was paid in cash and half in shares - so assuming Gordon has held the bulk of those shares (he seems to have done so) he's shouldered some pain from the "surplus value destroyed" (as it were) as the share price has crashed from 675p in January 2010 to 207p today.

 

On the other side of the ledger, though, one has to add the £82,000 that Gordon was awarded most years as a "salary supplement" in lieu of a pension contribution. (Those payments are not included in the table above because Mothercare doesn't include them in its versions.)

 

Was he worth it? Charitable souls will argue that he arrived when the share price was 100p and Mothercare seemed to be heading for the rocks; international expansion steered a path away. Harsher judges will reflect that the City now values the core UK business at less than zero.

 

Either way, £20m-ish over eight years – roughly what a top executive a successful FTSE 100 company might expect to earn – seems an awful lot to collect from a business now worth only £180m.

 

Sir Richard Lambert, in his "aliens" speech last year, reflected that "for the first time in history, it has become possible for a manager – as opposed to an owner – of a large public company to become seriously rich". That remark requires updating: Mothercare never was a large company.

[green]

This is happening & has been for the last 20 years, in boardrooms up & down the country.

[Mister M]

Generally its to get peoples backs up, the press know what riles the general public.

 

You're right the press, specially the blue tops enjoy winding their readers up by splashing the pay of top bosses over the news pages.

But the Mail and Express are also incredibly hypocritical. On the one hand they criticise what they percieve as 'greed at the top', yet castigate left wing suggestions for a more redistributive tax system. The Express in particular loves to give pages over to the lifestyles of the wealthy - breeding the envy they profess to hate.

I hope their readership soon sees through the pretense and cant

[Tony]

Oh dear, another waaawaaa boohoo thread about those nasty rotters who make the profits that pay peoples wages and for everything done by the government.

 

 

If you want to take the risk of running a firm go for it. You can pay yourself what you like depending on how well you do.

 

If you want to take the risk of investing in firms run by directors on your behalf you can make your feelings known to your employees.

[truman]

Oh dear, another waaawaaa boohoo thread about those nasty rotters who make the profits that pay peoples wages and for everything done by the government.

 

 

If you want to take the risk of running a firm go for it. You can pay yourself what you like depending on how well you do.

 

If you want to take the risk of investing in firms run by directors on your behalf you can make your feelings known to your employees.

 

I think what you meant was "Put up or shut up"

[Tony]

It's not my fault, they made me do it, they should pay the price.

 

[Tomataheeed]

Oh dear, another waaawaaa boohoo thread about those nasty rotters who make the profits that pay peoples wages and for everything done by the government.

 

 

If you want to take the risk of running a firm go for it. You can pay yourself what you like depending on how well you do.

 

If you want to take the risk of investing in firms run by directors on your behalf you can make your feelings known to your employees.

 

You've got the wrong end of the stick I think. These people are not entrepreneurs that have created companies, created wealth and created jobs.

 

They are part of a closed shop of the "Elite" of Harvard business school graduates that fix their own wages with their buddies on the board. They are all on each otehrs boards. For instance, they build in big "change of control" elements to their pay, so that if they choose to recommend to the share holders to sell off the company to a rival, they get a massive payout.

 

Then they move to another company for an equally large package. Check out the wages of the last few CEOs of EDS/HP as a for instance...

[Tony]

Ah, so aside from your description being pretty erroneous, you just want to talk about the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

I'm not here to defend anyone, just to shine a little daylight on common misconceptions.