A prosperous new year

At 2pm yesterday (Thursday, 5 January), earnings of the average FTSE 100 chief executive surpassed the median worker’s full-time annual salary. In just a couple of days, CEOs have earned more than the median worker will for the whole year.

The figures, from the High Pay Centre thinktank, are an annual reminder of the stark pay differentials currently at work in the UK economy. Indeed, the centre says CEOs worked nine hours less in 2023 to reach this discomfiting remuneration milestone (High Pay Hour 2023) than they did in 2022.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, says: “In the worst economic circumstances that most people can remember, it is difficult to believe that a handful of top earners are still raking in such extraordinary amounts of money.”

Board or smörgåsbord?

Happy New Year! And are you coasting, turning up to board meetings just to play boardroom bingo and then go to lunch? Well, in the US, according to a report in Forbes, this is one issue shareholders will be concerned about. Daniel Strachman of the Investment Management Due Diligence Association told Forbes that shareholders “will call out board director members who sit on too many boards and simply show up at meetings and collect a cheque”. Not sure if that applies over here but, with the economy the way it is, we wouldn’t be surprised.

Time to talk ESG

ESG, the concept and its content, is up for debate again (when hasn’t it been?), this time in an editorial for The Times. James Kirkup of the Social Market Foundation argues that it is precisely because ESG is a good idea—but has become so controversial—that we need a proper discussion about “real meaning”, preferably before it gets weaponised as “woke” by populist politicians here in the UK as it has in the US.

“ESG has enjoyed such success because more and more people like the idea that money can do good. It can, but not without raising some big questions. ESG’s supporters and practitioners should do more to answer them,” writes Kirkup.

Continental drift

If you’re waiting for the EU to finalise its human rights due diligence directive, please be advised: some of its member states have got there already. At the end of December, new laws came into force in Germany, affecting companies with more than 1,000 employees and mandating they undertake risk analysis and reporting on their supply chain due diligence. It’s likely not as powerful as the EU laws but it does lay down a marker. Be warned.