SYDNEY (Reuters) - National Australia Bank shareholders delivered an unprecedented protest vote against the lender's executive remuneration plans on Wednesday, the latest display of investor disquiet over poor governance in the country's financial sector...

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) Chief Executive Craig Jelinek's fiscal 2018 total compensation was valued at $7.4 million, up from $6.6 million in 2017, mostly consisting of stock awards in both periods. Mr. Jelinek's base salary rose to $800,000 from $713,462, Costco said in a securities filing. Fiscal 2017 included an additional week...

LONDON (Reuters) - Activist investor Shareholder Value Management has called on Mears Group to move swiftly to appoint a new chairman or it will call a fresh extraordinary general meeting, a letter to the company seen by Reuters showed. The move is the latest in a long-running attempt by the German-based fund, Mears Group's third-biggest investor, to push through a board change at the social housing maintenance and repair services provider...

TOKYO (Reuters) - How big should executive pay packets be? How widespread is lax corporate governance in Japan? And what's the future of the alliance between Nissan and France's Renault? These are the broader issues brought into focus by the indictment of ousted Nissan Motor Co Ltd chairman Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn was arrested on Nov. 19 charged with understating his compensation by about half of the 10 billion yen (69.77 million pounds) he was awarded over five years from 2010...

TORONTO — Detour Gold Corp. says interim CEO Michael Kenyon has resigned following a vote that saw shareholders side with activist investor Paulson & Co. Inc. in a extended proxy battle. The vote saw five Paulson-nominated directors approved, including two who had also been endorsed by Detour, as well as four others from the slate put forth by Detour...

ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse plans to buy back 2 to 3 billion Swiss francs ($2-3 billion) of shares over the next two years and raise its dividend, voicing confidence that its strategy is working after a painful three-year restructuring. Switzerland's second-biggest bank confirmed commitments to distribute half of net profit to shareholders, mainly through buybacks or special dividends, offering a sweetener to investors who have had to stomach hefty share price declines during Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam's three-and-a-half-year tenure. By focusing on managing assets for the world's wealthy, particularly the very richest and entrepreneurs in Asia, Credit ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Pressure on oil companies to tackle climate change is growing after an activist group for the first time filed a shareholder resolution urging BP to set hard targets for reducing overall carbon emissions. Follow This, a Dutch organisation that spearheaded a number of climate shareholder resolutions at Royal Dutch Shell AGMs over the past three years said it also filed one with the Anglo-Dutch company for 2019...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A leading corporate governance advocate said the board of Japanese carmaker Nissan must accept collective responsibility over alleged disclosure failings that led to the ousting of chairman Carlos Ghosn. The remarks by Jamie Allen, secretary-general of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA), come as a biennial survey by the ACGA and CLSA, an Asia-focused brokerage, showed Japan sliding three places to seventh in a regional ranking of governance standards - the worst decline in performance of any country. “If the chairman has been shown to be fraudulently disclosing information, then it’s not just the chairman that is ...

(Reuters) - Campbell Soup and Third Point LLC are close to settling a bitter proxy contest by adding two of the hedge fund's nominees to the U.S. food company's board and giving the activist investor a say in selecting Campbell's next CEO, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday...

Telecom Italia shares rose slightly Monday after the company named Luigi Gubitosi as its new chief executive officer Sunday to replace recently-ousted CEO Amos Genish. Mr. Gubitosi joined Telecom Italia as an independent board member in May 2018. He was appointed an extraordinary commissioner of Alitalia SpA in May 2017 and previously served as CEO of Italy's Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA and general manager of Italian state broadcaster RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana...

Many on Wall Street are weathering the autumn technology rout by buying the shares of firms with slower, steadier earnings growth, the latest sign that investors largely remain sanguine about U.S. stocks despite recent reversals. Trading has turned rocky since the S&P 500 finished the third quarter with its biggest gain since 2013...

(Reuters) - Dell Technologies on Thursday raised its offer to buy back shares tied to its interest in software maker VMware to $120 per share, still way short of the $300 price suggested by activist investor Carl Icahn. The computer maker in July offered to pay $21.7 billion, or $109 per share, in cash and stock to buy back shares tied to its interest in VMware, returning the computer maker to the stock market without an initial public offering...

(Reuters) - The chief executive of Oxo-cube maker Premier Foods is stepping down under pressure from an activist investor after failing to halt a share price slide since a proposed takeover fell through two years ago. The company also said on Tuesday it was in talks to sell its Ambrosia rice pudding and custards brand to cut a debt pile that exceeds 500 million pounds and laid out plans to speed up investments in marketing and high-return capital projects...

McKesson Corp. said its longtime Chairman and Chief Executive John H. Hammergren will retire next year, capping a 17-year reign in which he helped build one of the country's largest pharmaceutical wholesalers despite weathering shareholder criticism over his compensation and handling of the opioid crisis. Mr. Hammergren, 59 years old, will step down April 1 of next year and will be succeeded as CEO by Brian Tyler, the company's current president and chief operating officer...

Shares of Rite Aid, the Camp Hill, Pa. -based drugstore chain, rose 3 cents to $1.08 in trading Tuesday after 84 percent of shareholders voted against the company's proposed executive pay package including a $3 million bonus for chief executive John T. Standley , according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union, which represents some Rite Aid workers and holds shares in the struggling company...

MILAN (Reuters) - Hitachi has wrapped up a bitter feud with U.S. activist investor Elliott over Ansaldo STS , agreeing to buy the fund's stake in the Italian rail signaling group as part of a move to take full control. The Japanese conglomerate could spend as much as 1.25 billion euros to become the sole owner of Ansaldo STS, which it said would have a leading role to play in growing its rail business, including through acquisitions...

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WageWorks , Inc. (NYSE: WAGE), a leader in administering Consumer-Directed Benefits, today announced the appointment of George P. Scanlon to the Board of Directors. In addition, Interim CFO Izzy Dawood was appointed as WageWorks’ Chief Financial Officer effective October 15, 2018. Mr. Dawood has been with the Company since April 2018...

Nestlé SA's chairman is facing mounting opposition from some shareholders who say the former chief executive isn't helping his successor's efforts to reinvigorate growth at the world's largest packaged-foods maker. The maker of Nescafe coffee and Purina pet food has been under pressure since activist investor Daniel Loeb's Third Point LLC disclosed a $3.5 billion stake in the company last year and called for a raft of changes...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Campbell Soup Co said on Wednesday that four key shareholders, all descendants of the company's former chairman John Dorrance, have formally aligned themselves against hedge fund Third Point LLC's plans to oust the embattled soupmaker's entire board...

(Reuters) - Dell Technologies Inc said on Tuesday it was sticking to its plans to go public by buying back its tracking stock, a day after activist investor Carl Icahn opposed the move. Icahn reported an increased 8.3 percent stake in Dell tracking stock on Monday, saying he intends to do everything in his power to thwart the computer manufacturer's plans. Dell in July announced a $21.7 billion cash-and-stock deal to buy back shares tied to its interest in software provider VMware...

(Reuters) - California will require publicly listed companies with headquarters in the state to have at least one woman on their boards of directors by end of 2019, under a bill signed into law on Sunday. The law would mandate at least two female directors by the end of 2021 if the company has five directors and three women if the company has six or more directors. Violators face fines of at least $100,000 and up to $300,000 for multiple violations of the statute...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge in Manhattan on Friday dismissed an unusual lawsuit in which billionaire investor Carl Icahn accused the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz of malpractice related to his 2012 hostile takeover of CVR Energy Inc. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said CVR failed to show that Wachtell and two of its partners, Benjamin Roth and Andrew Brownstein, should have disclosed that two banks helping CVR defend against the takeover stood to earn much higher fees if Icahn's bid succeeded than if it failed. By suing, CVR, and thus Icahn, were essentially claiming they ...

Nestlé SA's Mark Schneider likes to describe his corporate strategy as a movie. Reviews so far have been positive, but he does have one prominent critic. In his nearly two years as chief executive, the former health-care executive has put greater emphasis on nutrition, petcare, coffee and water while shedding ancillary business...

TORONTO (Reuters) - Long-time gold bull John Paulson followed through on Friday on a pledge made last year to team up with other gold investors in an effort to work with management of companies in the gold sector to improve returns, according to the group, called the Shareholders Gold Council...