Investor Standard Life seeks change at Sports Direct, Volkswagen

LONDON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Standard Life Investments has concerns about governance at Sports Direct and Volkswagen (IOB: 0P6N.IL - news) and will press for more change at the companies, it said in its annual governance report on Wednesday.

Mike Ashley's role as executive deputy chairman of retailer Sports Direct was "ill-defined and did not seem to reflect the reality of his influence at the company," Standard Life (LSE: SL.L - news) Investments (SLI) said, adding it had "major concerns" about the firm's remuneration policy.

At Volkswagen, SLI said "increased board independence is crucial to rebuilding trust" in the company.

Both companies were marked as "escalation candidates" in the investor's report, indicating it planned to ask for more changes in the way they are run.

However, SLI said it had been influential in achieving change at WPP (Frankfurt: A1J2BZ - news) , the world's largest advertising agency.

"We were reassured that progress had been made, both in the ownership of the succession planning process by the board, led by the chairman, and the process itself." (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)