COMMONWEALTH Bank bosses have dodged the executive "first strike" pay bullet despite a backlash from shareholders over failing to meet their customer satisfaction targets.   :(

Shareholders at the annual general meeting in Brisbane today followed the recommendation of two corporate governance firms to vote in favour of the pay report which awarded millions of dollars in bonuses to executives.

But the number of votes cast against the pay packet rose to 14 per cent – up from just 4 per cent last year.

While the move deprives “mum and dad” investors of a “first strike” protest under new federal laws aimed at reining-in corporate excesses, shareholder advocates say the jump in negative votes would “come as a blow” to the board.

“They had 26 million vote against last year, this year it’s 84 million so it’s a big jump,” The Australian Shareholder Association’s Stephen Matthews said.

“That can be almost entirely attributable to the fact that they paid out these bonuses when the executives didn’t achieve these customer satisfaction targets.”   >:(

Mr Matthews said the CBA had attracted the resentment of shareholders who had still not received a clear explanation of what had happened.

Under the laws which came into effect for the first time this AGM season any company that receives a “no” vote over pay by more than 25 per cent of the shareholders two years in a row will be forced to put their directors up for re-election.

Pacific Brands, Crown, and Perpetual are among high-profile companies to have received first strikes so far this year.

The original performance metric said if CBA ranked in the top three of the big banks in customer service the directors could dip into a $36.1 million bonus pool.

But when the bank only came in fourth the board decided that was good enough and used its discretion to award 25 per cent of the bonus anyway.

Chief executive Ralph Norris did however take a pay cut in 2011, earning $8.6 million compared to $16.2 million last year.

Mr Norris told the AGM that Commonwealth's aim of being number one in customer satisfaction remained on track.

Improving customer service would be one of the key drivers of growth in an environment of constrained credit growth and tighter margins, he said.

ASA members hold about $500 million worth of the bank’s shares which is only a small part of the bank’s $77 billion market capital.

Corporate governance firms CGI Lewis and ISS Proxy Advisory Services both recommended that shareholders vote in favour of the report.

ANZ remains the market leader in customer satisfaction, followed by Westpac, NAB and then the CBA, a Roy Morgan report in July 2011 showed.

Furthermore the biggest improvement amongst home loan customers came from Westpac (+10.6 per cent), followed by NAB (+4.6 per cent) and then ANZ (+3.2 per cent). The CBA’s however dropped by 2.5 per cent.
Comments on this story

   Marc Posted at 7:09 PM November 08, 2011

       Should be law, miss performance targets, no pay rise for you....If I didn't get my job done on time (performance target) I'd be hit up for liquidated damages.   :(

   Lew of Longreach Posted at 6:53 PM November 08, 2011

       Why do these Greedy Bastards get all this money in the current conditions ??, they should be leading from the front and be happy with the huge salaries they already earn and not have their snots in the trough for all they can get.   >:(

   Age of Ryde Posted at 6:45 PM November 08, 2011

       It's incredible, they do as they like. Absolutely disgusting.   >:(


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/no-strike-outcry-as-mum-and-dad-investors-lose-pay-protest-against-bank-execs/story-e6frfm1i-1226188920992#ixzz1d93s1kWe

I wonder if this is partly what the occupy protesters are on about.   :(

Thread title: Executives Awarded  Millions Of Dollars In Bonuses

Thread fact: Chief executive Ralph Norris did however take a pay cut in 2011, earning $8.6 million compared to $16.2 million last year.

Hmmmmm,

wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 6:01am:

I wonder if this is partly what the occupy protesters are on about.   :(

Nope. From what I can see that is just the same old 'rent a loser' crowd unhappy with their station in life and prepared to blame veryone else for their own failings rathe than get off their backside and do something about it.

Life isn't hard, people just make it hard on themselves.

Such people are just, plain old losers.

wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 6:01am:

I wonder if this is partly what the occupy protesters are on about.   :(

I doubt the occupy protesters are shareholders of the commonwealth bank, so it's none of their beeswax.

wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 6:01am:

I wonder if this is partly what the occupy protesters are on about.   :(

That is exactly what the protesters are on about. They don't just sit around in tents all day either, they're busy on the various twitter sites telling people to take their money out of the big banks and deposit it in smaller banks.

See the Occupy thread for details of the amount taken out of America's major banks, and this is within the space of two or three weeks since the run on the banks started.

The Commonwealth Bank will want to look after their customers better or they'll lose them to credit unions etc

Don't forget to stuff those 'return paid' envelopes full before you send them back.

Quote:

They don't just sit around in tents all day either, they're busy on the various twitter sites

LOL.

... wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 3:33pm:

I doubt the occupy protesters are shareholders of the commonwealth bank, so it's none of their beeswax.

You might be surprised  ;)

Uncle wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 4:40pm:

... wrote on Nov 9th, 2011 at 3:33pm: I doubt the occupy protesters are shareholders of the commonwealth bank, so it's none of their beeswax. You might be surprised  ;)

I might be...but probably not.

Verge wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 3:28pm:

Thread title: Executives Awarded  Millions Of Dollars In Bonuses Thread fact: Chief executive Ralph Norris did however take a pay cut in 2011, earning $8.6 million compared to $16.2 million last year. Hmmmmm,

LOL, some people want Ralph Norris go hungry, by paying him only $8.6million, when he is doing his hardest to drive his staff to rip the customers off, of every dollar possible.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 4:31pm:

wrote on Nov 9th, 2011 at 6:01am: I wonder if this is partly what the occupy protesters are on about.   :( That is exactly what the protesters are on about. They don't just sit around in tents all day either, they're busy on the various twitter sites telling people to take their money out of the big banks and deposit it in smaller banks. See the Occupy thread for details of the amount taken out of America's major banks, and this is within the space of two or three weeks since the run on the banks started. The Commonwealth Bank will want to look after their customers better or they'll lose them to credit unions etc Don't forget to stuff those 'return paid' envelopes full before you send them back.

how many have jobs and how many have their superfund shares in banks????..pansi everybody today is a capitalist...it wont hit this lot untill they want to access their funds...then they may get a shock as their funds only invested in low profit making business'

we cant have it both ways as much as we would like it..

as you mention they are all on twitter complaining... I wonder if they are complaining about the Korean company that is making a fortunre from producing computers.ipods. and the latest must have these Occupy people seem to own..

from past experiance of this type of thing... it doesnt dawn on them that if they didnt have the 1% they the Occupy people wouldnt have half the things they seem to think they are entitled to have..

I personally am shocked to see what some of these CEos get it all seem so far out of proportion..and the fact we know so much today seem to create this jealous them and us syndrome..class factions..we forget the Owner of CRIKEY is doing very nicely

and I havent noticed any far hard lefties.. doing it tough either..

We had tv's before CEO's got multi million dollar bonuses cods, this is a relatively new thing. We would still have all the mod cons without the banks stealing money from us and without the government doing deals with big business.

What have the banks said? they will still make their huge profit no matter what happens.

I can't wait until they crash and they will, one after the other....boom boom