Institutional investors attending the National Association of Pension Funds annual investment conference last week were left in no doubt they should be more actively engaged with the companies they invest in. They were told as much by Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, and by Lord Myners, financial services secretary to the Treasury.

Mr Sants described shareholders as “the principal mechanism for holding [the managers of companies] accountable” and said they had a duty “to make that oversight role more effective”. Failure to do so voluntarily might lead to regulatory intervention.