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from Global Investing:

Investors investigated

We've wondered before about the validity of the British 'shareholder spring' narrative. A few high-profile casualties gave the story drama, but as we showed back in the summer, evidence of a widespread change in thinking was hard to find. KPMG has arrived at a similar conclusion this week.

This morning, FairPensions, a British charity which aims to promote responsible investment, has dug deeper into the behaviour of major institutional investors during that supposedly febrile period, and among the nuggets it has produced is the chart below of voting on contentious pay reports at annual meetings.

There are some questions which crop up straight away. What did BlackRock and Standard Life like so much about the Barclays pay deal that no other investor could spot; why did BlackRock think Martin Sorrell's potential 500% bonus was a goer; and given that, why did almost everyone think a maximum bonus award of 923% of BP CEO Bob Dudley's salary was just dandy?

(For the record, BlackRock tells us that it does not comment on voting decisions, and notes its Barclays vote was outsourced over a potential conflict of interest linked to its 2009 acquisition of BGI. Standard Life couldn't find the right people to comment directly, but a spokeswoman noted public statements that it had been pacified by concessions made by Barclays shortly before the AGM)