Barclays share price: Investors urged to revolt over CEO pay

An influential shareholder advisory group has recommended that investors vote against Barclays’ (LON:BARC) pay report at next week’s annual general meeting (AGM), the Financial Times reports. The news marks a blow for the lender which is currently facing pressure from activist investor Edward Bramson who has been pushing for a board seat.

Early Wednesday trade has seen a drop in the Barclays share price, with the shares 0.73 percent worse off at 165.36p as of 08:05 BST. The stock is underperforming the broader London market, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index currently standing 0.20 percent lower at 7,508.39 points. The Barclays’ share price has given up about 23 percent of its value over the past year, as compared with about a 1.3-percent gain in the Footsie.

More pressure ahead of AGM 

The FT reported yesterday that Institutional Shareholder Services, one of the main proxy advisers, had said that support for Barclays’ remuneration report was ‘not considered warranted’ given that US authorities had hit the bank with a $15-million fine over a whistleblowing scandal.

The lender’s chief executive Jes Staley was personally censured for his role in the scandal, which saw him try to uncover the identity of a whistleblower. While Staley was hit with a personal fine of £642,000 by UK regulators and had his pay package reduced, ISS argues that the remuneration committee’s response to the scandal was ‘inadequate’. The newspaper quoted Barclays as commenting that it had already “made a significant malus adjustment” to Staley’s pay.

Advisory groups on Bramson

The news comes ahead of the group’s AGM on May 2 which will also see activist investor Edward Bramson land a seat on the board. The FT reports that that ISS and Glass Lewis have recommended that shareholders vote against Bramson next week, while Pirc is advising investors to abstain.