Investors entering the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament yesterday could have gone to one of two meetings.
Investors entering the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament yesterday could have gone to one of two meetings.
In one room Prudential chairman Sir David Clementi focused on the "retirement opportunity" open to the insurance company as it seeks to sell more pensions.
In the other, ITV executive chairman, 65-year-old Sir Michael Grade, brushed off comments from one shareholder about his retirement and gave every impression he wouldn't be donning his slippers until ITV was back among the broadcasting greats as he made a successful fist of charming his audience of long-suffering ITV shareholders.
This is no small feat considering their holdings are worth little more than a fifth of what they were in 2000 and have just about halved in the past year.
Their divided emotions were evident during the question-and-answer session.
They roundly cheered a demand that Grade and his colleagues pay back their bonuses for last year after the phoneline scandal that cost it a £5.7m fine from regulators and another £7.5m after the company donated the illicitly gained profits to charity.
As for remuneration committee chairman Baroness Usha Prasher's defence that the company that is a "highly competitive industry" and the company needed to pay enough to attract "highly qualified and talented people"? Well, that got applause too and largely from the same group of people.
But Grade won them over because he offered a glimmer of hope, if not yet a turnaround in profits, to its shareholders.
Last year, ITV as a group - including all the little digital channels - recorded its first year-on-year audience increase since the 1990s. Viewing share across the ITV family of channels is up 1.6% at 23.4% compared to the year before.
Profit's last year may have fallen £100m to £188m but in 2008 "we have started the year well with an increase in total revenues of 3%", he was able to boast. It is even outperforming the rest of the UK TV advertising market.
"The turnaround plan as never going to be a quick fix," he cautioned, saying it would take three to five years. "We can report we are on to track to deliver that plan. We can tell you emphatically that ITV's business is in better shape today in terms of performance and trading than it has been for many years."
That was sufficient to woo the audience yesterday, but the old charmer might need a few more tricks in five years' time if he hasn't put profits in their pockets.
