Taking a Look at WH Smith

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Looking at the financial statement of WH Smith, it can be seen that director's remuneration includes Basic Salary, Benefit, Bonus, Pension entitlements and Share option (WH Smith annual report, 2012). From 2009 until 2012, the profits of WH Smith shown consistent increases not only because of their successful business strategies, but also related to a good remuneration policy. From the remuneration report of WH Smith, it follows The UK Corporate Governance Code (2010) strictly and based on Companies Act 2006, the Large and Medium-Sized Companies and Group, because the remuneration committee received advice from some professional firms and establishes the remuneration policy with several regular meetings. The board of WH Smith consists of seven members in total, which includes 4 non-executive directors and 3 executive directors. Walker Boyd is the chairman of the board and also a non-executive director, which is a member of the remuneration committee since February 2010 after the Robert Walker resignation. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company is Kate Swann. She joined the board in November 2003 and will step down as Chief Executive on 30 June 2013. Other members of the Board are in charge of different parts of company, but have worked as non-executive and executive not more than 10 years. This kind of composition avoids centralization of power, cliques and power struggles in an organization. In order to avoid breaking the Code and attract, retain and motivate directors, the Committee cooperates with FIT Remuneration Consultants LLP (‘FIT’) and an independent law firm and compile a reasonable remuneration policy. 4.1 Remuneration committee According to UK Corporate Governance Code (2010), it is suggested that listed c... ... middle of paper ... ...ith strong share price and some of them will get the organisation with the worst conditions of company performance. This is when the corporate governance bringing the right direction for organisation making best practice in deciding executive remuneration to sufficiently attract and motivate, eventhough to reach the satisfactory result there is a long way to go, involves time and efforts. The executives' remuneration at WH Smith especially for CEO is considered appropriate because it does not rely on agency theory alone but also considered the guidelines of the UK Corporate Government Code (2010) which is to attract, retain and motivate directors. To support this argument, “high pay itself is not evidence of inefficient contracts but may simply reflect the market for CEOs and the pay necessary to attract, retain, and motivate talented individuals.” (Conyon, M. 2006)

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