Member Info for Richox

While CEO, Mark Wilson is responsible for whatever happens to Aviva. The results of his actions and decisions influence the SP. He can't influence external matters, but he is in the insurance/risk management business and has vast resources at his disposal. The referendum and the risk of Bexit have been on the cards for some time. Mark Wilson was responsible for managing that risk and protecting shareholder value from it. Don't underestimate small shareholders' understanding. We know his job is not easy, and he rightly deserves a "good" salary, but we shareholders are keeping him in his post to make money for us, not to oversee a loss of value. Determining an appropriate amount to pay him is a complex issue, but comparing his remuneration with that of our Prime Minister for example is indicative that something is wrong. And don't confuse the professional manager that he is with a risk taking entrepreneur. Offering huge salaries is not a guarantee of getting a steady pair of hands. The financial world does not seem to be betting on Mark Wilson's ability to steer Aviva through Brexit, and I don't think many long term investors have felt much benefit from his 3½ years at the helm.The consensus was that Messers Moss and McFarlane didn't perform too well on their huge salaries and bonuses either. Leapfrogging salaries and ever increasing bonuses don't ensure better decision making, or even necessarily help retention. Just as an aside, the huge discrepancy in remuneration levels may well have contributed to a Brexit protest vote by those struggling to survive below the "average" salary. Perhaps the possible economic damage is of little relevance to them because they feel hopelessly cut adrift - a peaceful revolution brought about by a perception (reality??) of self serving elites.

Mark Wilson was appointed on 1st January 2013. Aviva's share price on that day was £3.73, in fact higher than today's price. His payout is both unjustifiable and unnecessary. The money is coming from shareholders funds and they should have put a stop to this nonsense long ago. It's not easy though because directors and pension fund managers aren't going to vote against the gravy train and day traders don't care. Lets face it, the system is now based upon greed. All we long term small shareholders can do is keep voting against.

Unless Mark Wilson is absolutely useless he will have taken out some kind of hedge to protect his shareholders from the effects of Brexit. 9 to 1 with Betfred has more than offset my paper loss on Aviva. Hopefully there will be a mega inflow to the balance sheet which will make Aviva an absolute bargain below £4 and offset any possible reduction in profits that might or might not result from Brexit. If clueless me can do it, and Mark Wilson (got to pay the best to get tthe best????) didn't, he should be fired, never mind paid any kind of bonus.

Whatever the reasons for the share price behaving the way it does, it's the board of directors that's steering this ship. The share price has done nothing but underperform whilst we have been in the EEC. The FTSE may have gone nowhere in 10 years but compare that with Aviva's loss of almost 70% of its value of 10 years ago. If its performance has been that bad while we have been in the EEC and our genius analysts are predicting it will do worse if we are out, then what does this say about the ability of successive boards of directors. How stupid are we investors allowing them to pay themselves their astronomical salaries and bonuses??? Apologies to day traders for the rant as why should you care?

Judging from his posts it just might be that dgp4 is one of the 9 brokers.

According to Hargreaves Landsdown's website, of the 13 brokers concerned, 9 recommend Aviva as a strong buy, 1, is neutral, 2 recommend sell and 1 a strong sell. The outlook for Aviva must be getting worse however as 3 months ago 12 of the 13 recommended it as a strong buy. The 20 analysts offering 12 month price targets for Aviva have a median target of 571.50, with a high estimate of 690.00 and a low estimate of 440.00. The median estimate represents a 37.58% increase from the last price of 415.40. What utter garbage these people churn out. We'd probably get more sense from the office cat. And guess what kinds of salaries and bonuses they are getting for it.

I guess you are not alone Grayling. Mark Wilson has had his salary doubled to £5.67 million for parting Friends Life from its shareholders. It's certainly not for overseeing the 15% decline in Aviva's share price since he came aboard, or indeed the 20+% decline in the last year. He has done no better than his much maligned predecessors towards restoring the share price to its pre crash level of £8. That's almost a 50% drop since 2008. The FTSE has all but recovered as have most other insurance companies, so why not Aviva? If Mark Wilson had any sense of propriety he would decline the bonuses that his self interested fellow board members propose until he delivers value to shareholders. We have just under a year to the next AGM when I can only hope that some of the self serving fund managers join us in voting against these ridiculous salaries and undeserved bonuses.

Vote against director remuneration now!! Their roles do not justify the levels being offered, Their performance does not justify the levels being offered. Shareholder return does not justify the levels being offered. It's time they understood that they are being paid to look after the interests of shareholders, and time their excessive self interest - paid for at our expense - is taken to task. Greed exercised by those given the privilege of power, be it the EU, FIFA, National Governments or Boards of Directors, can only be addressed by mass action. Sorry tracker, it's not restricted to socialism, it's human nature. If people are allowed to feather their own nests then they will. Vote against now!!

Aviva has continually underperformed virtually any comparable company or index for 30 years. Successive directors have always been more interested in feathering their own nests than looking after shareholders interests. Brace yourselves for another round of look how good we are and how well we are doing at the AGM. The same old spin and impenetrable fog that we get year after year. It's time this "pay them more and get more value for your money" nonsense was rejected. The smart money knows that if you can't think of anything else to short then short Aviva. You might make money if you are lucky playing the peaks and troughs game, but as a long term investment, what a duffer.

Vote down director pay at the AGM, A good start would be to cut it in half. Any bonus to be linked to increase in annual total shareholder return averaged over 5 years - zero increase in return, zero bonus; 10% increase in return, 10% bonus. Abolish long term incentive payments. Stop them diluting our holdings by giving themselves more shares. Its time their interests were properly aligned with ours. Our problem is that the primary interest of the big stakeholders is to keep the gravy train going - and they are using other people's money to do it. The system stinks.

At the end of December 1989 AVN (whatever it was called then) share price was in the £4.70s. FTSE was then about 2,400. Average building society interest rate over that time has been 5% - compare that with the much cut dividend. Does this performance justify multi million pound director payments?? Every annual report trumpets how strongly the company is performing and how the so called "world class" directors deserve their payments.Something doesn't tie up!! As for Long Term Incentive Payments - just another cream-it-off-while-you-can rip off. 3 months ago 11 of 14 brokers recommended AVN as a strong buy. The others were mixed. Since then the SP has gone down about 12%. Only 10 recommend it as a strong buy now. Price forecasts vary between £4.40 and £6.90. They just throw rubbish at us to encourage trading activity.

Brokers and analysts have no more idea than you or I. Otherwise they wouldn't be slaving away as hired hacks. For anything of significance the insiders shift the price before they've even logged on.

The primary purpose of this company is to enhance the wealth of the directors. Shareholders are a minor inconvenience that are best kept quiet with the lowest dividend they think they can get away with. The past may not be an indicator of the future, but look at the record over the last 30 years. The smart money is wise to them. Things might change, but then again pigs might fly. Good luck with your substantial investment.

These directors are dismally failing to convince the investment community that the shares should be more highly rated. They're 50% below where they were 10 years ago, and indeed 50% below where they were 30 years ago. Abysmal performance. Its time they were given a serious pay cut - even if not quite to half of what their predecessors were being paid 10 years ago - and forget any bonus until the share price returns to £8 and the dividend's back to 32p per year - from where it has progressively been cut. This company belongs to us shareholders and they are not giving us value. It's high time we recognised that paying astronomical salaries and equally astronomical bonuses is not the way to get results, and time we stopped them diverting our funds into their own pockets.

Don't be dazzled by the hype. According to the 2014 Annual Report: total profit in 2013= £2.151 billion, total profit in 2014= £1.738 billion. That's a 20% reduction in my book. Look at the dividend history: 30p in 2006/7 Cut in 2009/10, cut again in 2012/13, cut again in 2013/14. Maybe a 15% increase in 2015, but still only 19p. Look at the share price history: £8 in 2006, today halved to £4. Compare that with Prudential and Admiral - doubled in that time, Legal & General and Standard Life - +50%. The professional investing community can see through the hype and hence the SP performance. For this, a CEO a pay packet 15 times that of the British Prime Minister. And coming out of shareholders funds. The reality is corporate shareholders don't care. Their priority is keeping the gravy train going. If we little guys just shrug it off though we'll continue to get ripped off.

No company is immune from bankruptcy or from repeated share dilution/dividend cuts. Unless you totally write off the value of your shares it pays to be alert to changing risks. You are right, who knows where we will be in a few years time. Even you might unexpectedly need to sell your shares one day. Would you still be happy with your blind faith if they had done nothing but fall between now and then and had long since stopped paying any dividend?

I guess this year we can look forward to another 325 pages of impenetrable goulash telling us how Mark Wilson deserves yet another £2.6 million annual pay packet for overseeing the destruction of 20% shareholder value. It's time directors shared a bit of any pain shareholders feel. For starters not a penny in bonus should be paid to any executive until there is a year on year increase in share price and an absolute minimum of RPI increase in dividend. Dear shareholders, you've just got to stop believing the propaganda these guys are feeding you that they are worth anything like the money they are being paid.

I guess you are right that the bright side is the scraps thrown at shareholders. In spite of the value of these shares halving over that last 30 years and the cuts to the dividend, the management tell us year after year how well they are performing, they pay themselves huge bonuses and tell us ad nauseam that they have to be paid their astronomical salaries so that people of their caliber can be attracted and retained. And it must be right because they are telling us. From the long term shareholder's perspective their primary achievement has been to divert significant shareholder funds into their own pockets. Executive remuneration should be about ensuring their rewards reflect achievements that shareholders expect to see, rather than reflecting their own self defined goals. Could the next AGM be the time to start redressing the balance?

This looked a promising share to get into last spring. Was it the winter floods that have caused the nearly 30% drop in SP or are there other factors I don't know about? I'm beginning to think I should have taken out insurance against this investment.

Could it be the 2% increase in value of the dollar????