Boardrooms are quaking with fear as shareholders revolt Is it helpful? Probably not, but the fact that so many companies are suffering rifts with their owners is testament to the fact that they haven't been listening. Used to a fairly supine shareholder base, boardrooms have missed the change to have come over investors who themselves have woken up to the prevailing public and political view, that the link between pay and performance has been broken. Partly to fend off yet more regulation, investors are finally doing it for themselves and demanding that things have to change. But the now ritual annual meeting match-up is not a satisfactory way to proceed. Pay, however egregious it may appear, is not the reason why a share price has underperformed over a year or more. It's not the explanation for falling profits, earnings per share or dividends. The reasons behind these issues are more complex. For a board's non-executives it's a question of whether they are monitoring management properly. Have they appointed the right person to the job of chief executive? Are risks being managed effectively? Pay becomes subsidiary to these issues which are trickier to manage and require regular engagement with shareholders, not an annual showdown. Most directors claim shareholder value is their primary concern but then sigh at the thought of spending more time with investors. If they talk the talk of shareholder value, they've got to walk the walk. RBS tells us a lot about the UK recovery Repaying the state's financial aid is a significant landmark in the rehabilitation of the Royal Bank of Scotland. That won't be complete until the Treasury can sell its 82pc equity stake but one step at a time. Taxpayers have made back £1.5bn in fees from financing RBS and will book a further £2.5bn from the state's asset protection scheme, which Stephen Hester hopes to exit in the final quarter of this year - another crucial staging post in the journey back to normality. The bank's first-quarter results, however, reflect a wider economic truth. Its core UK business hasn't lent more in net terms whereas it has in the US. That's because the American recovery is now nine months in and activity reviving. Here we're still bumping along the bottom. Progress is being made but it's painfully slow.