In the latest rebuke of how eye-popping pay packages are awarded on Wall Street, a major institutional investor is taking the rare step to oppose the re-election of a
Goldman Sachs board member who approves compensation for many of the bank’s top executives.
The managers of Sequoia Fund announced plans this week to vote against
James A. Johnson, a longtime Goldman director and a former chief executive of
Fannie Mae, and urged other shareholders to follow suit.
The Sequoia Fund’s letter did not explicitly attack pay at Goldman. Instead, the focus was on Mr. Johnson’s background.
But the push comes days after
Citigroup shareholders rejected the bank’s $15 million payout to its chief executive,
Vikram S. Pandit.
The critique of the Goldman director also coincided with an unusual announcement by
Barclays, the big British bank, which said on Thursday that its executives would forfeit portions of their bonuses if the firm failed to meet certain profitability goals
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/investor-to-oppose-goldman-director/
For years I have struggled to understand why stockholders, the owners of companies, allow their Board of Directors to pay unbelievable salaries, to the stockholder's detriment. Looks like the straw has finaly started to hurt the camel's backs.
Now it is time for the rest of the stockholders in the rest of the companies to do the same thing.
