Fresh storm over executive pay

Executive pay has been  a subject of controversy for several years but nothing has come out of it all- CEOs are still laughing they way to the bank.

Small wonder that a fresh storm has erupted over some of the most recent news on executive pay. British Petroleum boss was given a 20% rise in a loss making year for the company. Although this was rejected by shareholders, the vote was non-binding. And VW's recently departed CEO got 6 million pounds as performance-related award despite the scandal that has sent the company's stock plummeting.

In the UK, hedge fund TCI  has taken a stake in VW in order to shake up its governance, FT reports. 
The reason put forward by its head is an interesting one. It's not the cost of CEO pay itself; it is that aggressive incentives lead to bad behaviour that impose costs on shareholders. Think of what happened at the leading banks in the world in the financial crisis of 2007.

Norway's oil fund, the world's biggest sovereign fund, has decided to take a position on executive pay. By this it means, the level of pay, not just the structure of the pay package.

The moves by the two funds are a good start. CEOs can get away with outrageous pay packages thanks to boards packed with yes-men. Also because institutional investors are not willing to invest the time and effort required for reform of pay. One reason is that those at the head of institutional investors themselves command huge packages, so it's a case of  birds-of-a-feather. Who wants to invite attention to their own obscene packages?

A third reason for soaring CEO packages is that investors don't really mind as long as the going is good- they are certainly not concerned about things like equity that angers social activists.

The best argument to make is not a moral one. It is that outsized pack packages are not in shareholders' own interests. They will lead, one way or another, to under-performance in the long run  because performance is the result of collective effort, it's not magic wrought by one person. If you focus too much of the reward one person, the collective effort is undermined.