Opening Quotes: Time’s a Changing?

FT: “Investors rebuke Citi board over pay’

Vikram Pandit: the greediest man on Wall Street?

Certainly the most shameless.

Shareholders – finally –  question his ‘incentives.’

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5af21ccc-88ae-11e1-9b8d-00144feab49a.html#axzz1sC0a9qGf

 “The golden rule of say on pay is to demonstrate that rewards are being earned for performance. In the banking system it’s also important to understand the risk management framework for those rewards. Citi failed that test,” said Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance for the California Public Employee’s Retirement System, which voted against the pay arrangements.

Mr Pandit received a total of $15m last year, comprising $1.7m in salary, a cash bonus of $5.3m, deferred stock of $4m and deferred cash of $4m. He is in line to receive millions more in a performance plan which has been criticised for including profit targets that are too lax.

Mike Mayo, analyst at brokerage CLSA, said Citi had a decade-long record of poor stock price performance and high executive pay.

“The level of the hurdle [for the bonus scheme to pay out] is ludicrous. This is part of the mosaic that leads me to feel that Citigroup is not a company that can be fully trusted because the management incentives, their pay cheque, is not well enough aligned with the value creation,” he said. “The only question is why it took shareholders so long.”