Firm Shells out £18m to boss
Fury expected as oil chief gets 126% pay and perks hike
OIL giant Shell risks sparking another shareholder revolt after handing its boss almost £18million in pay and perks.
Ben van Beurden’s eye-watering package more than doubled due to £15million worth of bonuses.
However, the payout could provoke a fresh backlash from investors after more than a quarter voted against Shell’s boardroom pay plans at last year’s annual general meeting.
It came after van Beurden was paid £7.8million for 2017. The Anglo- Dutch energy giant will hold this year’s AGM in the Netherlands on May 21.
Last year’s pay surge included a £13million bonus for van Beurden under a long-term incentive plan (LTIP), which came on top of a £2.5million annual bonus. Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, called the payout “ludicrous”. He said: “Shell epitomises the flawed governance model and warped corporate culture of modern big business.”
Van Beurden was paid 143 times more than Shell’s average employee working in the UK. The 60-year-old has raked in a total of £57million since becoming chief executive in 2014.
Shell’s profits leapt 36 per cent to a four-year high of £16.3billion last year.
But van Beurden’s £13million LTIP payout was due to an executive pay scheme which started in 2016 and included cost-slashing targets.
The global oil price has also jumped $40 a barrel since then, boosting Shell’s share price.
Shell said it is “sensitive to the wider societal discussions regarding the level of executive pay”, adding that it spent a significant amount of time discussing the bumper payout.