UK parliamentary committee challenges StanChart's compensation policy

(Reuters) – The chairman of the UK Parliament's Labor and Pension Committee has written to the president of Standard Chartered Plc (STAN.L) questioning the amount of the bank's retirement pensions after more than a third of the shareholders voted against the remuneration policy for its directors.

In the letter written Thursday and made public on Monday, Committee Chair Frank Field asked why the Compensation Committee had proposed that current directors receive 40% of base salary (20% of total salary) as a pension contribution, while new executive directors are limited to 10% of total salary.

The letter also asked if the Compensation Committee supported the Investment Association's directive that the pension contribution rates for executive directors should be aligned with their staffing levels, and asked if the Compensation Committee intended to review the compensation policy. executive compensation next year.

Some 36% of StanChart's shareholders voted against the bank's remuneration report for 2019 at its annual meeting in London, which included raising the retirement allowance for managing director Bill Winters.

Investors were also frustrated that the bank failed to cap pension contributions as a percentage of base salary, but based on a larger total salary base.

Field's letter summed up by asking whether the compensation committee shared Winters' point of view, as reported in the Financial Times on.ft.com/2y0P0tS, where the CEO had described the investors as "immature" for having voted against his compensation program.

The Chair of the Compensation and Winters Committee, Christine Hodgson, said earlier that the retirement benefits paid to executives were in line with the British corporate governance codes, even though the definition of basic salary by the bank included fixed compensation paid in shares as well as a cash salary.