Provident: no to clawback
ONE of the companies that suffered a dramatic shareholder revolt over executive pay earlier this month has said it has no plans to claw back directors’ pay.
Provident Financial, the specialist lender which got into trouble with shareholders after it awarded a 19.6 per cent pay rise to its chief executive Peter Crook and a 16 per cent rise to finance director Andrew Fisher, has begun a series of meetings with shareholders following its bruising defeat at its annual meeting earlier this month, where 51 per cent of investors voted against the group’s remuneration report.
Provident is being represented by the new chairman of its remuneration committee, Robert Hough, who is telling shareholders the company will do better next year at explaining its pay policy and will have a better dialogue with shareholders.
But he will not offer to claw back any of the pay increases for Crook or Fisher, which saw their pay go to £610,000 and £435,000 respectively, arguing that the group is one of the only large financial services companies to have delivered positive shareholder returns in the past year or so.
According to sources, meetings with shareholders have just begun, with some planned to go into June.