The 2022 UK Spencer Stuart Board Index covers the top 150 companies with a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange, according to market value on 30 April 2022. Market values range from £164.2 billion (Shell) to £2,292m (Shaftesbury). As with previous editions, the research excludes investment trusts and TUI, which has a German two-tier board structure.
The purpose of the survey is to provide a comprehensive review of governance practices in these 150 companies at a given point, in order to identify significant trends over time.
There are 39 changes of constituents since last year’s edition, the largest number in the past five years.
- Fourteen companies are included by virtue of increased market value. They are: Big Yellow, Drax, Grainger, Greggs, Indivior, LondonMetric Property, Man Group, Mediclinic, Ninety One, Petershill Partners, OSB, Safestore Holdings, Ultra Electronics and Watches of Switzerland.
- Two of the new entrants (Beazley and Mediclinic) are returning to the top 150, having dropped out in 2021.
- Three companies entered the sample for the first time by listing on the London Stock Exchange: Bridgepoint (private equity firm) in July 2021, Darktrace (cybersecurity AI company) in March 2021, and Endeavour Mining (gold producer) in June 2021.
- One company, Standard Life Aberdeen, has changed its name, to abrdn.
- Fifteen companies included last year lost market value and dropped out of the top 150 during the relevant review period. This group is composed of: Ashmore, BHP, Countryside Properties, Dr. Martens, Dunelm, Evraz, Ferrexpo, Genus, Hays, International Public Partnership, JustEatTakeway.com, Polymetal International, Quilter, SSP Group, and Vistry Group.
- RSA Insurance, Signature Aviation, and Wm Morrison Supermarkets delisted after being acquired.
- Ultra Electronics is included but in July 2022 Cobham received approval to acquire the company.
As in previous editions, industrial and manufacturing is the highest represented sector.
Breakdown of constituents by industry
Data has been compiled from publicly available sources and from contacting the constituents. Board composition was taken on 30 April 2022 and remuneration information is, for the most part, from the latest published annual report.
Minority ethnic diversity data was collected from annual reports. This data includes only those directors who have self-reported as having a minority ethnic background. While we recognise the need to go beyond the term “minority ethnic” as a homogenous group to understand the experiences and contributions of individuals in the boardroom, our research scope restricts itself to observing compliance with the framework and targets set out by the Parker Review targets and the CBI’s Change the Race Ratio campaign.
Data on board chairs is excluded from the split between our analysis of executive and non-executive directors, and their tenure is treated separately. However, they are included in categories such as foreign directors, age, women, and minority ethnic representation. In discussing CEOs and CFOs, we are concerned only with those who sit on a company’s board.
Foreign directors are defined as being of a different nationality from the company on whose board they sit. If a director has multiple nationalities one of which is British, they are considered a UK national. The new directors category relates to those who joined the board in the 12 months preceding the cut-off date, i.e. between 1 May 2021 and 30 April 2022.
In our tables we state remuneration data in the currency used by the respective companies in their annual report. We convert all figures to sterling for our broader analysis, using the Bank of England average exchange rate for the relevant financial year.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the company secretaries of the top 150 companies with a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange who kindly reviewed data from their own boards as we prepared the 27th edition of the UK Spencer Stuart Board Index.
Spencer Stuart contributors
Tessa Bamford (London), Marie-Liesse De Cherge (London), Livia Enomoto (Amsterdam), Keith Fryer (London), Celia Jackson (London), Nadia Kangmasto (Amsterdam), Alastair Rolfe (London), Alice Wyatt (London).