It’s nice that shareholder activists are foing after undeserved executive compensation:

Almost one in five HSBC shareholders refused yesterday to back a controversial executive pay scheme that could see the bank’s top six executives pocket up to £120m over three years.

Shareholder after shareholder at a lengthy and at times fractious meeting in London brought up the subject of the huge bonuses that could be paid at HSBC despite the drop in the bank’s share price and a multibillion-dollar write-down from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

“You have been paid a salary; your bonus is not for losing money, which you have consistently done,” one shareholder told the chairman, Stephen Green. “You and the rest of the board have caused misery to millions of people and yet you are there with your hands out taking everything you can … how much is enough?”

I would hope that this becomes more common, and more effective (the activists got 18% of the vote).

This is crony capitalism at its worst.