Fightback over £11.2m pay deal for Unilever chief

DEPARTING Unilever boss Paul Polman yesterday faced an embarrassing fightback over his multi-million pound pay deal.

More than a third of shareholders voted against new rules for how executives were rewarded each year.

Polman, 61, who earned £10.3m this year, an increase of nearly 40pc from 2016, was the focus of anger from smaller shareholders over suggestions he could be paid even more.

He and finance chief Graeme Pitkethly will have their salary, benefits and allowance lumped into a single ‘fixed pay’ figure, something advisory services have warned could lead to bigger annual increases than previously.

The changes would see Polman’s fixed pay – including his salary, allowance and pension – rise by 5pc to £1.45m.

His maximum potential bonuses would rise by 21pc, to £11.2m.

Unilever, which makes Marmite and Dove, insists the change will make its pay policies simpler and mean executives have more ‘skin in the game’, because they will require Polman and Pitkethly to buy more shares in the company to get the maximum bonuses available. But in a vote on the new policy yesterday, 35.8pc of shareholders rebelled. Nearly 5pc didn’t vote.

Chairman Marijn Dekkers had earlier fought off claims that the policy would lead to giant payouts and urged the investors to back it.

At London’s Southbank Centre, Polman, for whom a successor is being sought as he is set to leave his role, talked about the importance of its mission to give back to society as well as to investors.

Unilever wants to become more environmentally friendly, and is aiming to employ equal numbers of men and women in senior roles and back aid programmes in developing countries.

One investor quoted an article from 2015 where Polman was quoted as saying he was embarrassed by his salary and that he would work for free.

Prompting laughter, he asked: ‘If that is accurate, would he do so and save us a lot of money?’

Another shareholder of 35 years, Geoffrey Alan, complained about the company’s growing debts and added: ‘While I do congratulate the company for an excellent long-term performance, I am concerned by the changes in this financial year.’

The new pay deal has been opposed by the investor advisory service ISS, which said it could lead to bigger fixed pay than the current regime.

But Dekkers said: ‘The new policy is far more demanding than before, and firmly aligned with our strategy and with long-term value creation. We have a long history of applying high standards of corporate governance.’