FILE PHOTO: The HSBC bank logo is seen in the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause/File Photo
April 12, 2019
By Lawrence White
BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – HSBC shareholders on Friday overwhelmingly voted against ending a form of pension cuts affecting thousands of former employees, following a protest by some of them outside the bank’s annual meeting in Birmingham.
The policy, under which former employees’ pensions are cut when they begin receiving state benefits, is known as a ‘clawback’, which some of the protesters referenced by dressing in lobster outfits.
Advising shareholders to vote against the protesters’ proposal, bank chairman Mark Tucker said the cuts were both legal and fair, and fewer than 4 percent of votes cast were in favor.
HSBC also faced questions from climate change activist groups over its financing of coal power-related projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The bank last year ended funding fossil fuel projects in all other countries, but said a lack of alternatives in those three meant it would continue there for now.
“We don’t agree that we need to bring an immediate end to financing of all fossil fuels,” HSBC chief executive John Flint said.
The bank also reaffirmed a previously announced policy for executive director board members to take a reduction in their pension allowance from 30 to 10 percent of base salary, following increasing scrutiny from investors on overall executive pay.
(Reporting By Lawrence White; editing by David Evans and John Stonestreet)
