Investors oppose bonuses at Shell
May 20 2009 By The Journal
SHAREHOLDERS of Royal Dutch Shell staged a furious revolt against the recent pay awards for its directors despite the company’s middling performance.
The group saw around 59.4% of investors vote against its remuneration report at the annual general meeting held in The Hague and London.
Shell has come under fire after making huge payouts as part of its long-term incentive plan, despite missing performance targets.
But the shareholder rejection – a rare occurrence in UK corporate history – is only advisory and is not set to see pay deals thrown out automatically.
Sir Peter Job, chairman of Shell’s remuneration committee, said: "We take this outcome very seriously and we’ll reflect carefully on it. We have already introduced additional performance measures for future awards, reflecting comments from shareholders."
The group stressed it outlined plans each year in its annual report on how it would use other measures to assess bonus windfalls in cases where the ranking did not fully reflect Shell’s relative performance.
The vote marks the latest in a line of shareholder protests over pay. In April Newcastle housebuilder Bellway similarly suffered a high profile investor rebellion when shareholders voted down a bonus payment of £630,000 to executives after a disastrous year for the group.
And in 2003 shareholders in GlaxoSmithKline, which has around 1000 staff in County Durham, pushed out bonuses.
