Investor anger over builder who may take home £7.5m
BUILDInG materials giant CRH is the latest blue-chip company to anger shareholders over high levels of boardroom pay.
The company has awarded its chief executive, Albert Manifold, an 8.5pc rise in his basic salary and a big increase in potential bonus payments.
But investor group Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has recommended that shareholders vote against the plan at the firm’s annual general meeting on Thursday.
Manifold saw his total pay packet at CRH rise from £3.3m in 2014 to £4.3m last year. He has been handed an 8.5pc rise in his basic pay to £1.1m for 2016.
CRH has said he could get a bonus worth 225pc of his basic salary this year, up from a potential maximum of 150pc last year. Manifold could also get 365pc of his basic pay through the company’s ‘performance share plan’, up from a maximum of 250pc previously.
It means that the maximum he could earn through these three aspects of his pay has jumped 50pc to £7.5m.
‘This is a considerable yearon-year increase,’ said ISS. ‘In addition, the short and long- term performance targets have not been made significantly more challenging than what applied previously to reflect the higher awards. As a consequence, a vote against the remuneration policy is considered warranted.’
A handful of companies are expected to be given bloody noses this week over fat-cat pay including Schroders, Shire, Barclays and Weir on Thursday and AstraZeneca on Friday.
Smith & nephew and Anglo American are among the bluechip firms to have already suffered at the hands of an investor backlash so far this year.
But the most dramatic rebellion was at BP where just over 59pc of shareholders rejected a pay package of almost £14m for chief executive Bob Dudley.
Figures from ISS show an average of 5.8pc of votes have been cast against remuneration reports and policies so far this year – up from 3.9pc last season.
Rival shareholder group Pirc advised investors to vote against the pay proposed by Barclays. Boss Jes Staley is in line to earn up to £8m a year – a level Pirc described as ‘overly excessive’.