Granada chairman faces angry shareholder protests

Granada chairman Charles Allen has suffered an embarrassing shareholder revolt, which saw a quarter of shareholders vote against a senior executive pay package and 10% oppose his re-election as a company director.
Granada have been afflicted of late with falling advertising revenues and fallout from the ITV Digital debacle, which prompted The National Association of Pension Funds, the lobby group for institutional investors, to recommend that their members send a strong signal to the company by abstaining from the vote to re-elect Allen.
The association are also concerned that, contrary to accepted good practice, Allen is running Granada without a chief executive following the departure last year of Steve Morrison.
Allen fought back by suggesting that extensive media coverage had hampered shareholders' perception of Granada.
"Unlike any other company of our scale, media companies get a huge amount of coverage - and some of those people are our competitors," he said.
During the meeting Mr Allen faced angry questioning over Granada's performance, with one shareholder labelling him "ineffectual".
According to The Guardian, the shareholder called for "a bit more sackcloth and ashes in this board" given Granada's plummeting share price and a £164 million loss in the last financial year.
The meeting came as Granada prepare their merger with Carlton Communications, a deal that has been referred to the competition commission.
The commission is investigating whether a merged ITV should be allowed to command half the British TV advertising market by combining sales houses.
(GB)