ukThe UK’s biggest pension-fund investors have called for company executives paid in shares to be obliged to hold onto them for at least 10 years; the most eye-catching of a new set of principles on boardroom pay. The initiative, which has been put together by the National Association of Pension Funds, investor coalition Hermes Eos, and the pension funds for BT, the railways industry and universities, is aimed at encouraging company management to take a more long-term view.

Deborah Gilshaw, corporate-governance counsel at RPMI Railpen, which is the management organisation of the Railways Pension Scheme, said the pension funds hoped to rally others to their cause. She said: "This is a pension fund initiative, but it is absolutely our intention to bring together share-owner representatives, not just in the UK but elsewhere too."

  Financial News / NAPF