Politicians and campaigners are repeating calls for rewards to be slashed and the very system of bonuses itself has been attacked. Bonus pools have been cut across the board after most banks suffered a poor 2011, according to an CNBC report
In the U.K., luminaries including Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King have attacked bonuses – and even the right-wing, pro-business Prime Minister David Cameron called on state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland [RBS-LN 28.81 --- UNCH ] to “show restraint” in executive compensation.
“I think there is too much focus on bonuses,” Paul Walsh, chief executive of Diageo, told CNBC. “We need to focus on building the export potential of this market place, and I think by creating jobs a lot of these other issues will go away.”
Bonus-declining is the new black among banking chief executives. RBS’s Stephen Hester, brought in to solve the problems of predecessor Fred Goodwin, Lloyd Banking Group’s Antonio Horta-Osório, who took two months’ leave for exhaustion last year, and UBS’s Carsten Kengeter have already said that they will turn down this year’s bonuses.
After Hester, who appears to be tackling RBS’s many problems, turned down a bonus of nearly 1 million pounds ($1. 58 million) due to widespread criticism, Lord Wolfson, chief executive of Next, said he was "hung out to dry".
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has warned that an “anti-business culture” would damage Britain, which is in danger of entering recession again this year. One of the concerns of critics is that bonuses fuel a culture of short-termism rather than long-term success, and encourage employees to take more risks….
Find out more at http://www.cnbc.com/id/46337156
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