Shareholder capitalism needs a reboot

The obscene pay packages pocketed by listed company chief executives demonstrate that shareholder capitalism isn't working quite as it should. But it can be fixed, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

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Nutty pay policies are a sign that shareholder capitalism needs fixing

A few weeks ago, Nicholas Wrigley, the chairman of housebuilder Persimmon, resigned. He did so because on his watch a remuneration package was created to pay the chief executive £107m by the middle of next year. That's an insane amount of money for a manager of a listed company to earn.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.