Forum menu
20% pay rise for BP...
 

[Closed] 20% pay rise for BP boss, £14 million! I thought oil and gas were struggling?

Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 
[#7767564]

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36040210 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36040210[/url]

Ridiculous.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:27 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

just my humble opinion:

£14million? if that's what BP want to pay him, then why should i care? - with the caveat that he pays the same taxes as the rest of us.

Which we all know he won't.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:32 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

"The executives received the maximum bonuses possible in a year when [BP] made a record loss,"

I wouldn't mind betting that for most of the organisation below that level the losses were used as a reason no bonuses were paid.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:36 am
Posts: 9218
Free Member
 

I really hope the shareholders tell Bob Dudley where to go, a 20% rise (even if BP were doing well, which I believe they are not) is obscene!


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:40 am
Posts: 794
Free Member
 

I can confirm that all employees had huge bonus payments in their March paypacket. My wife has just left the employ of BP and you would be amazed at how much money they pay their staff compared to any other business with the exception of tobacco companies.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:43 am
Posts: 1014
Full Member
 

We're actually discussing this in 'the' office this morning. He doesn't come in the top ~25 O&G CEO salaries however with this updated package he might. Simons- strangely the bonuses paid to all staff for 2015 were the largest (in terms of %) for over 10 years.

As the post above from Salad confirms.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:44 am
Posts: 41848
Free Member
 

Oil and gas at boardroom level is like the Tory party, they're so far removed from reality it hurts.

I kid you not, at a time when we were making huge redundancies around Christmas the weekly newsletter from the gods headlined with how the restructuring was good for everyone, making us leaner and more agile into 2016, and better able to meet customer needs. This was before those being made redundant had even left the building, and a lot of us were still waiting to hear if we were redundant.

Redundancy for everyone else - statutory plus a (derisory) bit.
Pay off when they finally sacked our CEO - £4million&change.

you would be amazed at how much money they pay their staff compared to any other business with the exception of tobacco companies.

As a soon to be ex-oil and gas employee, I'm not, but then most of the engineering side of things is competing with the requirements that they need the brightest and the best, and competing with the banks for them (one of the biggest employer of graduate Process Engineers is investment banking, it's all maths and problem solving at the end of the day).


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:48 am
Posts: 66111
Full Member
 

I'll say one thing for the bank, at least when they were making people redundant and managing people out by the thousand and destroying people's investments, they had the grace to look a bit uncomfortable. Not "sorry" or "guilty" or "responsible", but at least aware someone might throw a brick at them


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 9:55 am
Posts: 3729
Free Member
 

I can confirm that all employees had huge bonus payments in their March paypacket. My wife has just left the employ of BP and you would be amazed at how much money they pay their staff compared to any other business with the exception of tobacco companies.

That's not even limited to BP. The general reaction to bonuses this year has been "WTF? A Bonus? Are you Mental?" Followed quickly by "oh well if you insist!"


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:06 am
Posts: 11402
Free Member
 

the head hunter on R4 this morning was spouting the "he'll leave because he's being hounded then who will they get ? no one would want a job where they will be bullied by the shared holders" bollox


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:12 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Agree that shareholders should reject this at the AGM and challenge the remediation Committee to prove their worth. Otherwise none of my business.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:26 am
Posts: 57389
Full Member
 

An interesting stat for you:

If the [s]living[/s] minimum wage had kept pace with average boardroom pay increases since its introduction, it would now stand at well over 20 quid an hour


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:28 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

And....?

An interesting stat reflecting lots of things, but not how wages are determined.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:33 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

If the minimum wage was £20 an hour, our dreadful productivity record would have resulted in significantly higher unemployment. You chose....


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:35 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 

but not how wages are determined.

No one is worth £14 million a year. No one.

It's wrong on so many levels.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:37 am
 Drac
Posts: 50602
 

I am.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:38 am
Posts: 57389
Full Member
 

If the minimum wage was £20 an hour, our dreadful productivity record would have resulted in significantly higher unemployment. You chose....

Yet the boardroom occupants, with their enormous annual increases, who've overseen this collapse in this countries competitiveness, and dire productivity record, deserve their huge annual salary increases and massive bonuses because.....?

Just because....

[img] [/img]


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:39 am
Posts: 13594
Free Member
 

If the minimum wage was £20 an hour, our dreadful productivity record would have resulted in significantly higher unemployment. You chose....

You're assuming everything else stays the same, which is unlikely. A higher minimum wage would encourage employers to increase productivity per employee.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:41 am
Posts: 1014
Full Member
 

Whilst I agree the salary is obscene, has anyone else looked at other Oil and Gas Ceo salaries? It would also be interesting to see how many of the companies you've actually heard of.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:41 am
Posts: 33186
Full Member
 

Binners +1

We seem to have a world where the top guys have convinced each other they are worth exorbitant salaries regardless of performance. Crazy.

From comments about bonuses across the industry though above, does seem to be very Alice in Wonderland.

Makes our greedy grasping politicians look like rank amateurs.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:44 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Possibly FF, but our (UK) track record is not that promising. But I wish that was the case.

Who said the CEO deserves it binners? That's for the shareholders and the remuneration committee to decide. I don't know the ins and outs but would doubt that £14m is justified but we have pretty lazy shareholders these days.

Lots of companies overpaying their CEOs who are delivering returns below their costs of capital. But shareholders have been poor at holding them to account. Look at our largest bank.....


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:45 am
Posts: 57389
Full Member
 

That's for the shareholders and the remuneration committee to decide.

Its not lazy shareholders. Its self-interested ones. In a world where most shares are held by institutions, not individuals, everyone knows that 'remuneration committees' are just an insitutionalised corporate merry-go-round of rubber-stamping each others obscene pay increases.

Thats how we arrived at this patently ridiculous state of affairs

You scratch my back.....


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 10:50 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Unsurprisingly binners that does not hold up to scrutiny. Indeed the reward (sic) in question has been the subject of intense debate over the past few weeks. The body that represents 20% of the shareholders has been lobbying against it as have other shareholders.

Only just clicked on the OP's link - the headline was a bit of a giveaway


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:02 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 

The body that represents 20% of the shareholders has been lobbying against it as have other shareholders.

So what about the other 79%?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:05 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Well we will find out at the AGM but they also include other groups and individual investors - the link notes Aberdeen and Royal London AM for example.

At least the exaggerated nature of comments ^ match the reward itself.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:11 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

No one is worth £14 million a year. No one.

Well, If someone came in and increased profits by 140 million, I'd be happy to pay them 14 million. They would be well with it too.

Clearly he hasn't don't that this year though. So it's hard to figure out why someone thinks [b]he[/b] is worth 14 million.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:11 am
Posts: 41848
Free Member
 

In a Devils Advocate defense of his pay; he's been paid £14million to run a loss making company, which is a bargain even if the next best guy wanted to do it for free and would have made £15million more losses (which would still be a drop in the ocean relative to the losses). Don't forget he has hit all his targets for the year, and may well have delivered the best outcome for shareholders given oil is bouncing along at about 1/6th what it used to be.

Whilst I agree the salary is obscene, has anyone else looked at other Oil and Gas Ceo salaries? It would also be interesting to see how many of the companies you've actually heard of.

Most of them, but then I work for a design contractor, so I've indirectly worked for a lot of them too.

Some of the numbers are obscene, but a lot of them will own large number of shares in the companies too, hence you get overall incomes like £80million at the top end (and an odd bias towards small-medium sized companies being at the top rather than Shell/Exxon/BP).

So what about the other 79%?

(Inferred from the tone of your post) logical fallacy, just because 20% don't support it, doesn't mean the remainder do, they're just not represented by the same group.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:16 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Well, If someone came in and increased profits by 140 million, I'd be happy to pay them 14 million.

So the CEO would be solely responsible for the increase?

No one else in the company would of been involved in the up turn?

I really like the idea of the top salaries being linked to ratio of the lowest.

[url= https://www.paycompare.org.uk/why-have-pay-multiples/ ]https://www.paycompare.org.uk/why-have-pay-multiples/[/url]


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:17 am
Posts: 57389
Full Member
 

The body that represents 20% of the shareholders has been lobbying against it as have other shareholders.

So what about the other 79%?

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/06/executive-pay-remuneration-committee ]Heres how it works[/url]


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:22 am
Posts: 41848
Free Member
 

I really like the idea of the top salaries being linked to ratio of the lowest.
Great idea, but that effectively caps any CEO to a multiple of the cleaner/security guard on minimum wage, and what if he works 80 hour weeks and the cleaner 10? Should the cleaner in the Shell office be paid only a third of a cleaner at BP just because the shell CEO took a pay cut?

And ignores the fact that being the CEO of a company employing 100,000 people is more difficult than being CEO of one employing 100, even if they have the same revenue, share price and dividend payments. Yet you'd cap the salary. Who'd want the big job?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:23 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

US CEO's earn considerably more, £100m+ not uncommon so the amount is relatively modest on a global scale. There is a counter argument which says in these very troubled times you need the best people to try and navigate your way through the difficulties. I don't have a view on BP specifically.

As I have posted before if CEOs are limited to a multiple of lowest all those jobs will be outsourced to agencies. Such a pokicy would have little impact


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:27 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Except binners, unsurprising, that is not how it works. Please read the OPs link and there is another background article in the FT from 7 April.

So gobuchul, what is a fair ratio and should it be the same across companies?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:29 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 

Who'd want the big job?

It was never a problem before.

[url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio_n_3184623.html ]CEO to worker ratio ballooned 1000%[/url]

The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay has increased 1,000 percent since 1950, according to data from Bloomberg. Today Fortune 500 CEOs make 204 times regular workers on average, Bloomberg found. The ratio is up from 120-to-1 in 2000, 42-to-1 in 1980 and 20-to-1 in 1950.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:31 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

And what should it be?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:35 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
Topic starter
 

50:1 would seem to be reasonable IMO.

Now I wait for your painful economic arguments while these ridiculous pay levels are good for the economy and the general well being of all.

I cannot see how any intelligent, fair minded individual can defend these salaries.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:38 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

And where does that come from? Would it apply to all types of company and who should set it?

Have I justified the salary? In fact....

- Member 
Agree that shareholders [b]should reject this[/b] at the AGM and challenge the remediation Committee to prove their worth. Otherwise none of my business.

POSTED 1 HOUR AGO #


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:40 am
Posts: 41848
Free Member
 

It was never a problem before.

And it wasn't limited, and presumably shareholders, directors and whoever else decided that they could make more money by employing the best people, so competition for those few increased and salaries went up.

As I have posted before if CEOs are limited to a multiple of lowest all those jobs will be outsourced to agencies. Such a pokicy would have little impact
It's already the done thing anyway. Most big companies outsource the unskilled jobs so that when pay rises and performance and retention bonuses come round they can offer everyone a reward, without it having to mean everyone (like it or not, the cleaners are replaceable with another cleaner, and the cleaner at Shell is worth no more than the Cleaner at McDonalds).

50:1 would seem to be reasonable IMO.

So you'd cap pay at £750,000

Yes that's a lot of money, but it's not exactly going to attract international companies to the UK is it? Even Wiggins and Froome would be digging out their Belgian/Kenyan passports.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:40 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Salary/compensation is low compared to the US

@neal how about if they reduced losses from what could have been £1bn to £500m ? (Made up figures as an example)


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:41 am
Posts: 9218
Free Member
 

£500k total job income per annum cap sounds fair to me. Who the heck needs £14M or even £1M per year (which is ~76x the income of a 40-hour week at £7.20ph)?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:46 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

What happens if that doesn't sound fair to someone else. Who is going to decide?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:48 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I cannot see how any intelligent, fair minded individual can defend these salaries.

Capitalism. Everyone wants to succeed and to succeed in many cases requires your company being better than the others or risk collapse. A cleaner in BP might be disgusted at his 'boss' getting $14m but if that was the best way to ensure his cleaning job remained secure and it cost him nothing (as new profits would dwarf it), I think he might think again.

Ive met a few very clever senior staff in O&G industry and its clear they are worth the money being paid (ive not met any millionaire level though) for what they are driving and steering the companies to achieve. I still dont think it appropriate to by paying multiple millions though, but its a world wide problem and its never going to go away as long as one company can get an edge over another.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:48 am
Posts: 57389
Full Member
 

Salary/compensation is low compared to the US

Maybe the CEO's of the British Equivalents of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook - their names escape me at the moment - should head over there where their genius and business acumen will be properly appreciated?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:52 am
Posts: 9218
Free Member
 

Bring on the Star Trek moneyless society! 😆


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 11:53 am
Posts: 66111
Full Member
 

jambalaya - Member

Salary/compensation is low compared to the US

But that'd mean they'd all have already fled the country! That's what people do when they could make better money or pay less tax elsewhere, right?


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 12:01 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

People do leave the country. They also come into this country in certain sectors for the same reasons - how do you think we attract all of our super talented bankers?

It's like footballers pay - completely rediculous, but then again the numbers your talking in the oil and gas industry are a whole number of levels higher, so proportionally to the size of the business it's not completely out of kilter. The CEO costs millions, but the impact of his or her decisions is in the billions.

Also at that level the CEO's themselves are taking a big risk - They're only one decision away from the sack, and if they perform badly and their reputation suffers then their chances of getting another CEO role diminishes.

Having said that the numbers are hard to justify on a moral level - the by the same token it has been proven undeniably that on the working levels where most of us mere mortals operate, pay is a very poor incentive for productivity. The notion that you pay people more and you'll get more out of them is actually false. So there is little incentive for businesses to increase pay other than to stay in touch with competitive salary levels to retain staff. Companies that have reputations for treating their staff well and motivating their staff do it via other means than just renumeration. Ultimately we're all humans as actually crave respect and acknowledgement over pay and that's where good 'people companies' do well.


 
Posted : 14/04/2016 12:25 pm
Page 1 / 2