Aggrieved investors should be able to join forces to lobby for change at Britains largest companies, the stock markets most influential investor said yesterday as it launched its biggest call yet for boardroom reform.
As part of a newly published five-point plan to overhaul company practice, Legal & General (L&G) said that the chairman, senior independent director and heads of committees at listed companies should face re-election each year. In time, every director should be approved by shareholders each year.
The plan forms the basis of the groups submission to Sir David Walkers inquiry into bank governance, to be published next month. Its is the most public example of a big City investor demanding an overhaul of corporate behaviour in the wake of the banking crisis.
Peter Chambers, chief executive of Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), L&Gs funds division, asked: If you are an investor who has struggled to get your voice heard, what else can you do to get them to listen? He added that being subject to an investor veto would have focused minds at Royal Dutch Shell, whose remuneration report was rejected by 59 per cent of voting shareholders last month. No votes on remuneration should be binding, he said.
Being able to act collectively could have forced change faster at Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining group that was forced to rethink a controversial capital-raising plan in the face of investor outrage, Mr Chambers said.
LGIM wants boards to be externally evaluated each year. Non-executives should work harder and be paid more.
The investment manager owns about 4.5 per cent of every listed company through its tracker funds. It could own a further 5 to 10 per cent through its active funds. It makes us a very meaningful presence, Mark Burgess, LGIMs head of equities, said. He added that companies were adopting a divide and rule tactic when dealing with their investors. We have been told more times than I would care to mention that youre on your own here, In turn, shareholders were talking to each other as never before, he said. Being able to combine their efforts without fear of breaching stock market rules could help to force change more quickly. There needs to be a forum where institutional shareholders can get together and collectively engage with companies, Mr Burgess said.
LGIM met 640 companies last year, about 130 of those to raise corporate governance concerns. It will not oppose cash windfalls for Barclays executives, including £22 million for Bob Diamond, the president, after the sale of Barclays Global Investors.
However, LGIM added that it continued to object to Sir Stuart Roses combined role as chairman and chief executive at Marks & Spencer.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
