Call to kick Schroders heiress off board. The main heiress to the Schroders (SDR) family fortune is facing a shareholder revolt after an influential investor advisory service recommended that she should be booted off the fund management group’s board. Leonie Schroder, who joined the board last month after the death of her father Bruno Schroder, had not demonstrated that she had any of the skills suitable to be a director of the FTSE 100 group, according to Glass Lewis, which advises shareholders on how to vote on governance issues. Michael Dobson, 66, its chairman, also should be voted off the board, Glass Lewis said, because of the way he had handled the appointment. Shareholders should vote against the remuneration report, too, because of an “excessive” £6.7 million package, most of it an uncapped bonus, awarded to Peter Harrison, 52, chief executive.
Boohoo results leave rivals looking drab. Boohoo.com (BOO) looks likely to show its rivals a clean pair of heels next week when the booming online fashion retailer delivers what are predicted to be a bumper set of annual results. On Wednesday the owner of the Nasty Gal, Boohooman and Pretty Little Thing brands is set to report a 54% jump in pre-tax profits to almost £66.7 million, on a 45.6% rise in revenues to more than £844 million, according to analysts’ forecasts. Such a performance would be all the more striking as it comes against a backdrop of ailing consumer confidence and a trading crisis on high streets and after Asos, its main competitor, issued a profit warning.
Doorstep lender Provident Financial (PFG) counterattack has hostile bidder Non-Standard Finance (NSF) on the defensive. When John van Kuffeler launched his £1.1 billion hostile bid for Provident Financial two months ago, the founder of Non-Standard Finance ambushed his target on the doorstep by revealing that he already had the backing of three of its biggest shareholders. Yet a takeover that once looked like a fait accompli is now anything but. Patrick Snowball, the former army tank commander who is Provident’s chairman, and Malcolm Le May, the sub-prime lender’s chief executive, have launched a counter-attack that has left Non-Standard Finance reeling.
Advisers spurn Barclays (BARC) rebel Bramson. A second shareholder advisory service has come out for Barclays in its battle to keep Edward Bramson off its board. ISS has followed Glass Lewis in recommending that investors vote against Mr Bramson, 68, becoming a non-executive director at the bank’s annual meeting on May 2. The activist investor has been campaigning to force a change in strategy centred on cutting Barclays’ underperforming investment bank. Sherborne, Mr Bramson’s investment vehicle, has a 5.5% holding in Barclays. Barclays is one of Britain’s biggest banks, with more than 100,000 staff in its retail, commercial and investment banking businesses. Mr Bramson is a New York-based investor who targets underperforming companies and who previously has taken aim at Electra Private Equity and F&C Asset Management in the UK.
Rentokil perfect the dark arts of chocolate traps for mice. It isn’t just humans who are partial to a nibble of Easter chocolate. Mice are mad for it too, according to the Rentokil Initial (RTO), the pest control group, but it has to be the right sort, its researchers have discovered. After a lengthy experiment on the chocolate preferences of dozens of the rodents, Rentokil has said they love milk chocolate and white chocolate but turn their whiskers up at more sophisticated dark chocolate. And the higher the cocoa solids component of the dark chocolate, which is regarded as a sign of quality for human consumers, the more the mice shun it.
