Hammerson has been a reputable brand across the United Kingdom and is the owner of some of the best and biggest shopping centres in the country. Any company’s strength lies in its shareholders, but Hammerson is expected to have a widespread rebel amongst its own. The reason that this Bullring owner faces such a situation is because of the structuring of their payouts to all their executives that surpasses a million pound. The company that owns the Brent Cross in London is in deep waters until they can find a solution to this problem.
Diving deeper into this fiasco
There is an Institutional Shareholder Services or the ISS which is an organisation that suggests shareholders on various aspect of the business. ISS was the first to criticize the company following their annual meeting and came out with a statement asking all the shareholders to take the stand. The annual meeting was to discuss the payout and the concerned announcement was made post that. In their statement, they went onto mention the reason for the same. Since there has been a constant decline in their share, approximated at two-fifth from the last year, the company did not care to include that when they were paying out their CEO and other senior members of the company. There was even outrage regarding the payment to senior members who were leaving the company. The targets set by the company were not met and yet the bonus awarded to these employees. The employees who left the company held high positions such as the chief investment officer and managing director of the French division and were still given a bonus despite them stepping down a few months before the annual meeting.
The company has had its own share of controversies since the last year. They were supposed to acquire their rival firm Intu for more than 3 billion pounds but had to cancel the deal since there was a pressure from the shareholders to do so. There were even reports of a company taking over Hammerson, but they were successful in fighting away that issue.
As of now, the company has released an official statement that seems to be in line with the demands of their shareholders. The official spokesperson came out and said that the remuneration committee will investigate the matter deeply. There are plans by the company to put their payout system under review and propose a new one at the next annual meeting in the year 2020. They also said that all the complaints regarding the company have been heard and they will form a crucial crux of the discussion and the decisions will be made to ensure that the company keeps working for the interests of its shareholders and the rewards are distributed in a justifiable way. This statement comes as a huge relief for the shareholders and may act as a suppression of the rebellion until the next general meeting.
