Frank Sidney Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 My advise to Stephen Hester would be this. Agree to not take the bonus. With a couple of conditions. Firstly, agree not to take the bonus if MP's with more than a million in assets agree not to take any salary for the remaining term of the parliament. Secondly, all Labour MP's, who were in parliament during the last government, with a million in assets, should pay back all the expenses they claimed during this period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lockjaw Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Publicising stories like this just stirs up unrest and doesn't help anyone. Like this one, for instance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deltic Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 A few random thoughts: The current very large ratios between CEOs and average salaries are relatively recent and apparently originate from a badly drafted piece of regulation in the 1980,s which was supposed to control the actions of reparation committees and had the opposite effect, allowing CEOs to promote massive salary inflation. How do we know that these people are actually responsible for the improvements in the companies. RBS was at absolute bottom where else could it go? The only way the CEO could have been said to have failed would have been if it collapsed entirely (again). A study of other CEOs reveals a similar pattern. For instance Justin King ceo of Sainsbury's joined the company when it was in trading terms on it's knees. Two years ago his bonus of £4M was larger than his salary (£3.9M). There is a statistical phenomena called tendency to the mean. basically if things are good they have a tendency to decline, if things are bad they have a tendency to improve. This would tend to suggest the a CEO who joins a company in trouble would expect to earn large bonuses for turning the company round regardless of performance (unless they were so incompetent they actually managed to counter the tendency to improve). An earlier poster speculated about putting in a capable middle manager (paid about 250k) and how their performance might be inferior. But imagine if it wasn't. Could the whole edifice collapse as it was realised that there are many people capable of doing the job at a much lower salary? A cynic might believe that the government would never allow that to happen because so many of their city supporters would be adversely affected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jez449 Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Wrong to be honest. WE, you and me and the Government OWN 84% of RBS, therefore at ANY board meeting to discuss wages or bonus payment, with 84% of the vote the Government will would prevail - it's as simple as that. Therefore we have to assume the Government are complicit in the bonus payments. So much for the "we are all in it together" mantra. Angel. Course the Government is complicit in the bonus payments - that's why they apparently gave him a contract specifying what his bonus would be if certain targets are met. Obviously he must have met some of these targets, but not all, as he is getting two thirds of the bonus figure mentioned in his contract. It should be remembered that it was the the Labour Government, not the current one, that gave Mr Hester his contract. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudbeer Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 This is wrong on so many levels,RBS is 82% owned by tax payers if it was not for them they would not be there. I think if you ask tax payers if they are happy paying out a £1m bonus to a ceo who has failed to meet agreed targets,seen his companys share price drop 40% and is in the process of laying off 3500 employees they would not be happy at all,bailing out is one thing excesive £1m bonus for underperformace (on top of a £1.2m salary) is quite another. Its no wonder capitalism gets a bad name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Genuine question..who set Hester on and negotiated his contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 This is wrong on so many levels,RBS is 82% owned by tax payers if it was not for them they would not be there. I think if you ask tax payers if they are happy paying out a £1m bonus to a ceo who has failed to meet agreed targets,seen his companys share price drop 40% and is in the process of laying off 3500 employees they would not be happy at all,bailing out is one thing excesive £1m bonus for underperformace (on top of a £1.2m salary) is quite another. Its no wonder capitalism gets a bad name. Is it underperformance or is he meeting his contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard2miss Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Cameron says share holders should real in excessive bonuses. As WE are the majority share holders then why is he not practising what he preaches ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudbeer Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Is it underperformance or is he meeting his contract? Well if his contract targets are to not meet government lending targets,over see a 40% drop in the share price and lay off 3500 staff then who ever set up that contract should be held accountable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodStar Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Cameron says share holders should real in excessive bonuses. As WE are the majority share holders then why is he not practising what he preaches ? Cameron, like most successful politicians says what people want or expect to hear, whilst behind the scenes getting on with his own agenda, which in his case is looking after the interests of the top 1% wealth/power wise. There is no way that huge fat cat wages/bonuses will ever be controlled. Even if they were legislated against, ways around will be found. In the same way that the ultra rich and big businesses circumnavigate the tax system to avoid paying what it says they should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.