De La Rue is hammered as shareholders revolt

STRUGGLING banknote maker

De La Rue bore the brunt of shareholder anger amid a wave of investor revolts over sky-high pay and company performance.

The company pledged to update its pay policy after it narrowly avoided losing a vote over a 20pc rise for chief executive Martin Sutherland last year.

He got a £197,000 bonus despite shares dropping 23pc over the same period.

A total of 48pc of shareholders voted against the pay report following recommendations from investor advice group ISS.

De La Rue is under attack from activist investor Crystal Amber which wants to oust chairman Philip Rogerson.

Crystal Amber has blamed Rogerson for failing to rein in excessive pay awards.

But Rogerson escaped relatively unscathed following Thursday’s meeting, with more than 91pc of investors voting to keep him on board. Shares increased 1.5pc, or 3.5p, to 234.5p.

Over at FirstGroup investors were also frustrated. Almost a quarter of shareholders attempted to block its remuneration report, while 39.9pc voted against the reelection of Imelda Walsh, a nonexecutive director and chairman of the remuneration committee.

Boss Matthew Gregory was paid £876,000 in the year to March 31.

First Group, which operates the Greyhound bus service in the US and a string of UK rail networks, has come under growing pressure from activist Coast Capital, which wants big changes to boost performance.

The transport firm is considering selling Greyhound as well as spinning off its UK bus arm, First Bus, following Coast’s intervention. Shares rose almost 2pc, or 2.2p, to 114.1p.

At online retailer Findel’s shareholder meeting, Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct attempted to oust finance director Stuart Caldwell. It came after Ashley, 54, suffered humiliation when Findel’s shareholders rejected Sports Direct’s £140m takeover earlier this year.

Sports Direct is Findel’s biggest investor. Despite the revolt of 41.9pc against Caldwell’s reappointment, Findel’s stock was up 3.4pc, or 8p, to 243p.

Shares in troubled Metro Bank plunged to record lows after it revealed that worried customers had pulled £2bn out of its deposits. The stock dropped 19.2pc, or 91.4p, to 385p, after Metro announced an exodus of customers and a fall in profits following an accounting error.

It will pile further pressure on founder Vernon Hill, who is stepping down as chairman after criticism over his leadership.

Hill has pledged to stay on the board as president and a nonexecutive director in a move likely to raise questions over how much power he will continue to wield.

Metro shares are now down 88pc in the past year, driven lower after the bank revealed in January that it had miscalculated the riskiness of some property loans.

On Tuesday evening the lender said that deposits had dropped by £2bn in the first half of 2019, driven by large companies pulling out their cash.

It means Metro’s £13.7bn of deposits are lower than the £15bn it has lent out to customers, giving the bank a so-called loan to deposit ratio of 109pc.

Aston Martin also crashed to a low following Wednesday’s profit warning. The stock fell 17.8pc, or 136.2p, to 630.6p, taking losses since it floated in October at £19 a share to 65pc. Software business

Sage Group plunged 10.4pc, or 84.6p, to 732p after revealing sales fell to £195m, or 15pc, in the nine months to June 30.

The company was yesterday’s biggest loser on the FTSE 100, which was itself down 0.17pc, or 12.41 points, at 7489.05.