Yes men to blame for the gravy train

Complacent and lazy, they're prepared to go along with whatever the board is suggesting. The Economist has been studying the problem. The Corporate Library, a US research firm, has examined the proxy-voting trends of America's 26 largest mutual funds.

It shows that the average level of support for management proposals rose from 75.8% in 2006 to 84% last year. In Europe, Manifest, a shareholder-advice firm, says 97% of all shareholder votes cast in Europe last year were supportive of management.

City Spy simply refuses to buy the argument that the reason they vote "yes" so often is because the current system of setting bosses' remuneration is in fine shape.

* ONE arch-critic of the corporate gravy train is Warren Buffett. He objects to the way in which chief executives can choose the members of remuneration committees. They are hardly likely to select the toughest inquisitors. "These people aren't looking for Dobermans, they're looking for cocker spaniels." City Spy will go with that.

* GORDON Brown hopes the recession will be V-shaped, meaning the sharp fall in output is followed by a sharp recovery, but not everyone is convinced. "I'm more on a W than a V but no one knows what it is going to be," says Michael Hitchcock, finance director of menswear chain Moss Bros. "It could be a Z for all I know." City Spy dreads to think what that would be like.

* VIAGRA maker Pfizer, the world's biggest pharma firm, is really getting into the swing of money-raising. After last week's big bond sale, when it raised 5.8 billion, Pfizer has now put two of its company Gulfstream jets up for sale. There's a Gulfstream V available for just $29.25 million, or the even posher Gulfstream 550, yours for $35.5 million. It's a shame the deal has cropped up too late for Fred the Shred's reign at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Since they come in matching shades of Viagra blue, RBS wouldn't even have needed to repaint them.

It's all a question of location

SIR Victor Blank must be pleased that this Friday's annual meeting of Lloyds Banking Group takes place in Edinburgh.
Unlike Sir Fred Goodwin, who had to face the hostility of local shareholders at last year's Royal Bank of Scotland annual meeting, Blank must be hoping that most of his army of 2.8 million small shareholders simply won't be bothered to trek all the way up to the Scottish capital.
In any case they will be far too busy deciding whether or not to take up their rights in the Government's £4 billion preference share sale. It's actually a no-brainer: the new shares are being sold too cheaply, and private punters should take up their allocation and avoid the meeting.

* BUT how on the earth will Blank get to the meeting? His favoured mode of transport — the G-Wiz — does 48 miles on each single electric charge. So London to Edinburgh will take him a minimum of seven charges. Better set off tonight, Victor.

* LOTS of crying over the spilt white stuff in Edinburgh last week, when the Milk Summit took place. Seriously. It was intended to discuss "Stability, Sustainability, Profitability" as well as the myriad other problems faced by the £300 million dairy sector. It was all ruined rather when buying giants Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda all failed to turn up. The supermarkets blamed their absence on competition laws, but Morrisons was there. With farmers angry at supermarkets for, er, milking a profit out of dairy goods, were the other big retailers just too scared to show their faces?

* MORE on David Elias. As City Spy disclosed last week, the financier and fuel credit-card king — he built himself a multi-million-pound fortune and was the employer of Ernest Saunders after the ex-Guinness boss came out of jail — apparently left personal debts of an eye-watering $400 million when he died in Singapore recently. It now turns out that one of the creditors of his empire that stretched to 120-plus companies may have been our own HM Revenue & Customs. He is thought to have owed the taxman £40 million...

* TO the BCO (that's British Council of Offices) conference dinner and the introduction of the guest speaker, Alastair Campbell, by Mike Hussey, head of Land Securities' London division and the conference chairman. He begins by reading two lines from Campbell's autobiography. Why? "Because I haven't read the rest of it," explained Hussey.

Giselle and the joy of slumming it

EVEN being a supermodel can't protect you from the recession. Giselle Bundchen, pictured, the world's highest-earning catwalk queen, has seen her annual pay packet slashed by $10 million, according to Forbes' list of the highest earning models. But don't shed too many tears for the Brazilian: she has still pocketed $25 million since June last year. And Britain's own Kate Moss upped her pay packet by $1 million to $8.5 million, thanks to the success of her Topshop range.

* MARKS & Spencer is claiming that one of the first stores to sell out during its 125th birthday Original Penny Bazaar promotion was the City branch in Finsbury Pavement. Apparently, more than 800 City folk queued to get in, with a pair of cuff links for 1p being the most popular item.

* BUT, reports Retail Week, such generosity from M&S was not repaid. Shoppers were invited to make a charitable contribution in buckets by the tills. Most of those in London paid the minimum 5p.

* A LETTER in New Civil Engineer magazine has come up with the perfect solution for the Olympic Village. At present, it's to be funded entirely by the taxpayer with the money recouped after the Games when the flats are sold. "Such optimism," writes John Firth. "Would not a better solution be to make it second-home accommodation for those political athletes ever seeking gold in our Parliament?" City Spy wholly endorses the idea.