ITV's Allen under fire on performance
ITV chief executive Charles Allen is under growing pressure from shareholders to reveal growth targets. He is expected to give more details of his plans at a board meeting tomorrow.
Chairman Sir Peter Burt was forced to deny reports last week that fund group Fidelity was behind plans by shareholders to pressure Allen into setting definitive growth targets for ITV while insisting he quit if he failed to meet them.
But shareholders in ITV, created by the £5bn Carlton and Granada merger last year, do want the board to set clear performance targets and want to know more about Allen's pay deal.
One leading ITV investor said: 'The company is being asked to be more specific about Allen's plans for growth and how his performance will be measured. We need to be clear about how we judge success or failure. There is some immediacy about this - shareholders are actively trying to judge whether Charles Allen will be successful or not.'
It was Fidelity that led the shareholder revolt preventing former Carlton boss Michael Green from becoming ITV chairman.
Investors are making it clear they are concerned about Allen's performance so far. They fear the television company could miss the chance to take advantage of an upturn in the advertising market.
They want to hear more about plans that Allen, left, has drawn up for dealing with competition posed by the multi-channel television operations of pay-TV providers such as BSkyB and they want to hear about his plans for increasing market share.
