It would be easy to dismiss the “shareholder spring” as a spasm against bank pay. Yet it has affected companies as diverse as AirFrance-KLM, retailer Carrefour, oil company Shelland WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group, and stretched from the US and UK, to France, Germany and Switzerland. Like the Arab spring it was rather grandiosely named after, it has helped force out the leaders of drugs group AstraZeneca, Aviva, the insurer, and media group Trinity Mirror.
In order to find out how institutional investors were savouring their victories, I travelled to Rio de Janeiro last week to attend the annual conference of the International Corporate Governance Network. ICGN is a global membership organisation with a mission to raise standards of corporate governance and consists largely of institutional investors who collectively represent funds under management of about $18tn.
What was most striking, however, was not the air of resignation rather than jubilation. For many investors, the revolt is a small blip compared with the lack of even rudimentary shareholder rights in many markets.