New York City Retirement Systems filed shareholder proposals to strengthen the incentive pay clawback policies at Goldman Sachs Group, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, according to a statement from John C. Liu, city comptroller, who also oversees the systems’ $108.1 billion in assets.
The $54 billion UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, Ann Arbor, Mich., co-filed the proposal at Goldman Sachs, confirmed Meredith Miller, chief corporate governance officer of the UAW trust.
All three proposals call on the directors of the three companies “to hold senior executives financially accountable for losses that result from excessive risk-taking, or improper or unethical conduct” and “to require disclosure of any decision by their boards on whether or not to recoup executive compensation.”
Under clawback policies, executives generally forfeit incentive compensation if companies have to restate financial results due to improper conduct.
“These tougher clawback provisions will not only recover money that shouldn’t have been paid in the first place, but also set the tone for a stronger standard of conduct for company executives as well as their bosses,” Mr. Liu said in the statement.
Mary Claire Delaney, Morgan Stanley spokeswomen, and David Wells, Goldman Sachs spokesman, said separately their respective company officials have no comment.
Charlotte Powell, spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan, couldn’t be reached for comment.
The companies have not filed their proxy statements yet; their next annual meetings are next year.
The systems as of Dec. 19 held a combined 15.4 million shares in the three companies, valued at $483 million. It held 10.5 million J.P. Morgan shares, valued at $324 million; 1.2 million Goldman Sachs shares, valued at $107 million; and 3.7 million Morgan Stanley shares, valued at $52 million, the statement said.
The UAW trust had 295,274 Goldman Sachs shares, valued at $25.9 million also as of Dec. 19, Ms. Miller confirmed.
The five systems are the $38.7 billion Teachers’ Retirement System, the $37.3 billion Employees’ Retirement System, $22.3 billion Police Pension Fund, $7.1 billion Fire Department Pension Fund and the $2.6 billion Board of Education Retirement System, with all asset amounts as of Sept. 30, according to a comptroller’s office report.
