By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
The Singaporean state investment company Temasek Holdings is to stage a protest vote for the second consecutive year at next month's annual meeting of Standard Chartered, the emerging markets bank.
I have learnt that Temasek, which holds an 18.2% stake in StanChart, intends to abstain from supporting the re-election of a quartet of executive directors amid continuing concerns about the structure of the bank's board.
The ongoing dispute comes at an awkward time for StanChart, the shirt sponsor of Premier League side Liverpool. Last year, the bank was forced to pay $667m (£436.5m) to US regulators to settle allegations that it had breached US sanctions on Iran.
Temasek declined to comment on Wednesday. However, its annual report published last July, said: "We promote sound corporate governance in our portfolio companies, and support the formation of high calibre, experienced and diverse boards to guide and complement management leadership.
"Board directors have a fiduciary duty to safeguard the interests of relevant stakeholders.
"To provide effective oversight of management on behalf of all shareholders, we advocate that boards be independent of management. We do not support excessive numbers of executive members on company boards."
The four executive directors whose re-election Temasek will abstain on are: Steve Bertamini, consumer banking chief executive; Jaspal Bindra, chief executive of Asia; Mike Rees, who runs wholesale banking; and V Shankar, chief executive of StanChart's business in Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas.
Crucially, Temasek has decided to vote in favour of the remaining resolutions at StanChart's annual meeting on May 8, including the re-election of Sir John Peace, the bank's chairman.
Sir John came under intense criticism last month when he was forced to apologise to US regulators over comments he had made suggesting that the sanctions breaches were inadvertent.
A number of City shareholders believe that Sir John, the only man to chair three FTSE-100 companies, should prune his portfolio by resigning from either Burberry or Experian, or both.
"It is essential that he [Sir John] gets a grip on things, and this week's events compound our sense that he cannot do that when he is chairing three FTSE companies," one investor told Sky News last month.
Reports last year that Temasek was looking to offload its StanChart shareholding were understood to be erroneous.
StanChart declined to comment.
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