Protesters have flown in to ensure their voices are heard when a top Wall Street investment bank holds its shareholder meeting at Elbow Beach today.

The protesters claim executives of Lazard Ltd., which is incorporated in Bermuda, have failed to improve the quality of care at one of the largest elderly care home companies in the US, Atria Senior Living Centers.

Lazard Ltd. is run by chief executive officer Bruce Wasserstein who took the company public in 2005. Mr. Wasserstein is estimated to be worth approximately $2 billion according to Portfolio Magazine.

Lazard, which currently manages $141 billion, is one of the few investment banks to emerge from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown unscathed.

The protesters, who are part of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), claim residents of Atria are receiving poor treatment, workers are underpaid, under trained and intimidated for attending union meetings.

SEIU, a labour union representing 1.9 million workers, have also questioned why Mr. Wasserstein earned $41 million or $19,711 an hour in 2007 while workers at Atria earned approximately $300 a week and were unable to afford the company's medical plan.

"We plan to directly address questions to chairman Wasserstein and all board members who are present regarding the potential risks to the company that are posed both by Lazard's widely-criticised executive compensation practices, and by the growing dispute at the Lazard-affiliated company, Atria Senior Living," wrote Deepak Pateriya of the SEIU Capital Stewardship Programme in a letter to the Lazard board.

Atria is actually owned by Lazard Alternative Investments (LAI) which has operated separately from its publicly traded namesake since 2005. However the protesters allege that ultimately Mr. Wasserstein and Lazard directors still have large stakes in LAI and could influence decisions there, if they chose to.

For the past year protesters have been campaigning outside various Lazard meetings in the hopes that eventually someone will do something. Until now all of those protests have taken place in the US but one protester, Daniel May, said they weren't going to miss out on an opportunity to exert preassure on Lazard directors just because the shareholder meeting was being held overseas.

"We are here because we don't think that directors should be able to ignore the concerns of workers and residents by holding a meeting 600 miles away from the offices and facilities of Atria," he claimed. "The directors of Lazard have an opportunity and a responsibility to look into the conditions at Atria. Any claims that they have no capacity to review these issues is disingenuous."

Lazard Ltd. declined to comment yesterday.