Public lose faith in UK boardrooms

BRITONS' trust in boardroom directors has hit rock-bottom with a long line of corporate accounting scandals placing top managers on a par with politicians.

A survey out today shows even lawyers are more trustworthy than chief executives, who came far behind the clergy and top-scoring doctors.

Only 4% of respondents in Britain said they trusted top managers a lot, compared with 50% for doctors. Half said recent accounting scandals in the US had influenced their feelings.

The global survey, carried out by research house GfK for The Wall Street Journal Europe, showed the highest level of trust in top managers came in Denmark - 18% - with the lowest in Germany, at 2%.

Politicians were consistently bottom of the heap, although journalists came bottom in Britain. Doctors are least trusted in Italy while the clergy got its lowest scores in Belgium and France.

The results come at a time of increasing shareholder activism, with investors being allowed to vote at annual general meetings on boardroom pay for the first time this year.

Andy Fleming, of the National Association of Pension Funds, said he was convinced the ongoing row over rewards for failure had affected directors' standing in the public's eye.

'People's confidence in the job managers are doing is going to be undermined if they are getting massive rewards for poor performance,' he said.

The CEO and Stocks Survey also found 66% of Britons feel that the expansion of the European Union will have little effect on companies, and that almost half - 49% - of Americans believe European firms are managed 'much worse' than US businesses.