Corus clobbered in fat cat revolt

12 April 2012

INVESTORS have berated steel group Corus over its chairman's 130% pay rise. Sir Brian Moffat was paid £558,846 in basic pay and fees last year, compared with £302,818 for the previous 15 months.

The revelation earlier this month caused anger among unions - Corus axed 6,000 jobs and froze workers' pay last year in an attempt to slash costs.

But the move also infuriated the Co-operative Insurance Society, an institutional investor and today CIS showed its displeasure at the Corus annual meeting in London. It voted against the reappointment of non-executive director and remuneration committee member Eric van Amerongen. The pay rise was not put to a vote.

Ian Jones, head of corporate governance at CIS, said the increase was 'highly inappropriate' in light of Corus' 'severe financial difficulties'. He added: 'To have such a significant difference between the remuneration practices for executives and employees poses significant reputational risk to Corus - a risk that is passed on to employees and shareholders alike.'

Jones conceded Moffat's award was in line with industry averages - he had a combined role of chairman and chief executive last year - but said it still posed a risk to the company and to employee morale.

Van Amerongen was reappointed by 1.72bn proxy votes although Corus received 23m proxy votes against. CIS voted in person at the AGM, along with one other unknown shareholder.

Speaking at the meeting, Corus said the hike recognised Moffat's dual role, adding that his salary had been reduced following the appointment of a chief executive. Moffat is now paid a basic salary of £245,000 a year.

Corus also updated investors on trading. The company has been rocked by the tough global economic climate but said today it had seen some price recovery in the US during the three months to March. This had been prompted by the threat of import sanctions by the US Government. Since their introduction last month, Corus added, there had been a 'significant' further increase in selling prices.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in