DR IRAJ ABIDIAN, CEO PAN-AFRICAN INVESTMENT AND RESEARCH SERVICES
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The axing of Old Mutual CEO Peter Moyo has sparked investor worry that SA’s second-largest insurer might use shareholder funds to pay him an exit package that runs into millions of rands.
A group of pension funds with a collective shareholding in Old Mutual of less than 1% want the company’s board – led by chairman Trevor Manuel – to engage with shareholders and put any possible exit package for Moyo through a vote.
If Old Mutual accedes to the pension fund demands, it would be a rare move as there are no rules in SA that give shareholders the right to reject a golden handshake granted by a board to an outgoing CEO. On Tuesday, Old Mutual told the market that it had sacked Moyo, nearly a month after suspending him over a conflict of interest and governance issues related to investment holding firm NMT Capital, which he co-founded. Old Mutual is also NMT Capital’s only institutional shareholder as Old Mutual Life Assurance Company, a long-term insurance subsidiary of the insurer, owns a 20% stake.
A group of pension funds with a collective shareholding in Old Mutual of less than 1% want the company’s board – led by chairman Trevor Manuel – to engage with shareholders and put any possible exit package for Moyo through a vote.
If Old Mutual accedes to the pension fund demands, it would be a rare move as there are no rules in SA that give shareholders the right to reject a golden handshake granted by a board to an outgoing CEO. On Tuesday, Old Mutual told the market that it had sacked Moyo, nearly a month after suspending him over a conflict of interest and governance issues related to investment holding firm NMT Capital, which he co-founded. Old Mutual is also NMT Capital’s only institutional shareholder as Old Mutual Life Assurance Company, a long-term insurance subsidiary of the insurer, owns a 20% stake.
