As we de-merged Collins Stewart and Tullett Prebon last December, we have just had two annual general meetings for our companies. This has multiplied the amount of annoying trivia received from some of the proxy agencies and a few shareholders whose approach to business might be described as “Tree-huggers do corporate governance”.

The most frequent complaint was that our executive bonuses are uncapped. Most of our staff are rational and, if you cap their rewards, when they reach the cap they stop work.