PARIS:
Investment fund CIAM has urged Scor to postpone next month’s annual shareholders meeting and also criticised the French insurer for making only cosmetic changes to its executive pay policy.
CIAM, which owns more than a 1% stake in Scor, said postponing the AGM would be more shareholder-friendly and allow the reinsurer to focus on managing the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
Scor said on March 13 that its annual general meeting (AGM) would be held on April 17. Scor did not give a date for the meeting when it published 2019 results in late-February, while last year the AGM date was included in its 2018 annual results statement.
CIAM said the April date was communicated just within the legal limits of the French corporate law and the AGM would take place earlier than usual.
“Such move significantly reduces the time available for shareholders to review the materials published or to engage with the company in these testing times,” CIAM said.
Scor declined to comment.
CIAM also said it was “extremely disheartened with the lack of responsiveness and effort” of the board to consider shareholder concerns over executive pay. “CIAM notes only cosmetic changes to the remuneration policy for 2020. Meanwhile, shareholders have suffered from poor share price performance even prior to the recent COVID-19 crisis”.
Scor’s board has recommended a reduction in the variable compensation of the company’s chairman and chief executive Denis Kessler for 2019 to 1.08 million euros ($1.2 million) from 1.18 million euros a year ago. His total compensation would increase to 6.7 million euros in 2019 from 6.52 million a year ago, according to Scor’s annual report.
About 54% of the shareholders present at Scor’s 2018 AGM approved Kessler’s package for 2018 and 2019.
CIAM said it would vote against both Kessler’s remuneration report as well as the remuniration policy for 2020.