Teachers join front against Beaudoin
Pension plan joins investors in opposing Bombardier chairman
MONTREAL— The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has joined several large institutional investors in voting against the re-election of Bombardier’s executive chairman and the company’s executive compensation plan.
“Our assessment of recent events confirms the need for independent board leadership,” the Torontobased pension plan said in a report on its website.
Teachers’ added it doesn’t typically support the executive chairman role, but did back the election last year of Pierre Beaudoin, whose family controls the company through multiple-voting shares.
Bombardier’s executive-compensation plan fuelled outrage and sparked protests earlier this year after the company increased pay almost 50 per cent despite receiving taxpayer aid and announcing plans to cut more than 14,000 jobs.
Bombardier later reduced Beaudoin’s pay and delayed some remuneration for leaders, including chief executive officer Alain Bellemare. Bombardier will hold its
The teachers’ pension plan said it has concerns about the board’s approach to executive compensation despite Bombardier’s improving performance
annual general meeting on Thursday.
Teachers’ pension plan also said it has concerns about the board’s approach to executive compensation despite Bombardier’s improving performance. “We found important information missing to support the compensation decisions of the board and as a result find that the resulting linkage between pay and performance is not sufficiently justified,” it stated.
Teachers’ also voted against the executive compensation plan in last year’s non-binding vote.
The teachers’ pension plan does not disclose its holdings in Bombardier since it is below its $150-million threshold. The Caisse de dépôt pension fund manager and Quebec Federation of Labour’s Solidarity Fund said they cast similar votes ahead of its annual meeting Thursday.
The Caisse owns more than 53 million class A and B shares in Bombardier.
It also has a 30 per cent stake in Bombardier’s railway division.
The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. said it also plans to vote its nearly seven million shares against Bombardier’s compensation policy and will oppose non-independent directors.
Bombardier said Beaudoin will continue to stand for re-election, but would not comment until the matter has been discussed at the annual meeting.
Quebec last year invested $1.37 billion in Bombardier’s CSeries jetliner program, which entered service more than two years late and billions of dollars over budget.
Ottawa gave the company a $372.5million loan in February in support for the CSeries and the Global 7000 business jet program after more than a year of discussions. The announcement came nearly two months before Bombardier disclosed its increased compensation.
Federal Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains said Tuesday that the government won’t get involved in the debate between Bombardier and its shareholders because, unlike the Caisse, it doesn’t own shares in the company.
Bombardier has struggled to fulfil a $1-billion streetcar order placed by the TTC. Toronto was supposed to have 121 new streetcars by now, but has received only 35.
Last month, after facing weeks of criticism, Bombardier announced that its board of directors approved changes to the compensation offered to several top executives.
Bellemare had asked the board to delay payment of more than half of last year’s total planned compensation for six executive officers, including himself, by one year to 2020, provided the company meets certain objectives. Beaudoin also asked the board to cut his 2016 compensation by $1.92 million to equal the $5.28 million he received in 2015.
In a regulatory filing ahead of the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, the Montreal-based company had said the proposals were accepted and approved by the board. With files from Bloomberg and Star staff