World-beating pay

Please, sir, can we have higher executive pay? We may have a Labour government but that doesn’t stop some from claiming some high-earning corporate leaders need to be higher-earning corporate leaders.

This week, The Times published an article by Schroders, the investment house, warning that the “pay gap” between UK and US CEOs risks a flight of talent from these shores.

Schroders’ research suggests UK CEOs are paid a fifth of what their US counterparts earn. Kimberley Lewis, head of active ownership at Schroders, writes “there is a case to pay more to achieve worldwide alignment”.

In the next line, though, she admits there is an issue. “We know that remuneration sums frequently are huge, especially in the light of comparisons with average worker pay, but we cannot shut down the compensation solely on that basis.”

We can’t help feeling that nor can you talk it up based on a desire to achieve “worldwide alignment”. Schroders may have found a pay gap; the big question is whether it matters?

A spoke in the wheel

Also in The Times, and also on the topic of chief execs, is a worrying story about deepfake, AI-generated voice notes being used to impersonate CEOs in scams to con people out of money.

The deepfakes use snippets of a CEO’s voice to clone a message, often on WhatsApp, asking for cash transfers to be made.

One tech expert tells The Times that the CEO scams are “ramping up”.

That’s a disturbing development and people should be on the lookout. Especially if the deepfakes ask for higher pay.

Where next?

A sad day for Delaware, according to US governance guru Charles Elson, writing in the Financial Times .

Taking a swipe at reforms in the state viewed as a bastion of US governance, Elson calls it a “sad” tale for shareholders facing new laws that would allow company co-managers to “strike secret side deals with big shareholders, bypassing the board on governance questions previously reserved for directors.”

“Powerful special interest groups,” writes Elson, “now have a model for legislatively circumventing the celebrated judicial process. Sadly, Delaware’s cherished neutrality and circumspection have been sacrificed.” Elson adds: “It’s terrible ending to a brilliant regime.”