Reuters investors urged to vote Sinclair off board

Reuters investors urged to vote Sinclair off board

Anglo-American corporate governance activists are demanding that investors block the re-election of Charles Sinclair, the chief executive of the Daily Mail, as a non-executive director of Reuters, the news and financial information group.

The recommendation comes on the eve of the Reuters annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday when the re-election of Sinclair will be put to the vote.

The issue is seen as embarrassing for both the Mail and Reuters - two of Britain's largest media groups.

Protests are expected over a number of other issues, including the freezing of inflation-linked benefits to a final salary pension scheme for former Reuters employees and the payment of an annual fee of £500,000 to new chairman Niall FitzGerald.

RREV, the corporate governance body that is jointly controlled by Britain's National Association of Pension Funds and ISS, America's leading governance organisation, says that after serving on the board as a non-executive for 11 years, Sinclair cannot possibly be viewed as independent.

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Tim Sawyer, chief executive of RREV, said: 'This is something we feel strongly about; we have made representations to the company, but to no avail. Investors must ultimately decide - but they know our view.'

Sawyer also recommends that shareholders oppose the re-election of Ian Strachan. Sawyer says: 'We do not think that Strachan is independent as he is also head of Instinet, Reuters' trading platform in the States. You cannot pretend that the head of a company's subsidiary is an appropriate non-executive director of the parent group.'

Ironically, Instinet, is in the process of being sold for about $1.5 billion. It is thought that Nasdaq is in exclusive talks and a deal could be announced within days.

A row is also brewing over retirement benefits paid to former employees. A website has been established which calls for a better deal. One campaigner, Tony Winning, says: 'Reuters profits are going up and so are executive pay packages, but pensioners employed prior to 1997 have seen inflation-linked rises frozen for three years.'

Meanwhile, shareholder activist group Pirc has told its members to oppose Reuters' remuneration report over FitzGerald's pay.

• The chairman of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum has written to RBS challenging 'the secret basis' of its pay plan for US executives.

'Transparency is vitally important,' says the LAPFF.

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