Shareholders in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will have received their Annual Report and Notice of the AGM in the post today. The meeting is on the 25th April for those in a nominee account, and its being held at the RBS headquarters in Scotland of course.
There are 28 resolutions on the Agenda. Please ensure that you vote your shares. Resolution Number 28 directs the board to appoint a Shareholder Committee and was put forward jointly by ShareSoc and UKSA. The board has again opposed that resolution on spurious grounds. A Shareholder Committee would provide a say on such matters as director nominations, remuneration and strategy and that resolution should be supported by all thinking shareholders. See this document for more explanation and a list of the resolutions: https://www.investors.rbs.com/~/media/Files/R/RBS-IR/results-center/letter-to-shareholders-2019.pdf
Corporate governance at RBS is still poor and a Shareholder Committee would cure that. The Financial Times today highlighted one remuneration issue which is that the CEO, Ross McEwan will receive a pension contribution this year of 35% of salary, i.e. £350,000. This seems to be the latest wheeze to avoid scrutiny of high pay with other major UK banks paying similar amounts. So another recommendation is to vote against the Remuneration Report (Resolution No. 2).
Personally I will also be voting against the authorisation of share buy-backs (Resolutions 26 and 27), and against the resolution that permits General Meetings at 14 days notice (No. 24), as I always do.
I will also be voting against the Chairman Howard Davies (Resolution 5) for opposing Resolution 28.
For more information see the ShareSoc blog item here: https://www.sharesoc.org/sharesoc-news/vote-for-rbs-agm-special-resolution-28-shareholder-committee/
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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