Coupe faces outrage over share slump at Sainsbury

FURIOUS shareholders told the boss of Sainsbury’s that its plunging share price was ‘no laughing matter’.

Investors voiced outrage over Mike Coupe’s £3.9m pay package at the supermarket’s first annual meeting since a botched deal with Asda fell through.

The failed tie-up was described as a ‘fiasco’ after the retailer blew £46m on adviser fees and its stock slid to record lows in the aftermath.

Small shareholders branded Coupe ‘useless’ and called for the board too boot him out.

But despite the backlash, the 58-year-old chief executive won support from most of City institutions, with 99.5pc of investors voting for his re-election.

Sainsbury’s pay report was also voted through, but almost 10pc of shareholders attempted to block it.

Coupe was caught singing show tune We’re In The Money between television interviews when plans for the Asda deal was announced last year. One investor asked him if he ‘had any other songs to sing’, to which the chief executive replied: ‘Don’t tempt me.’

But the joke backfired after the investor said: ‘This is not a laughing matter.’ He added: ‘You should all be ashamed.’

Another investor, John Farmer, accused executives of presiding over ‘blunderingly poor performance’. He said: ‘For goodness’ sake, you as a board are paid to get things right and manifestly, of late, you have not.’

Farmer added that chairman Martin Scicluna should reconsider his decision to keep Coupe on as chief executive.

Scicluna joined in March, days after the Competition and Markets Authority blocked the merger. He said the deal was ‘first-class’ and defended Coupe.

‘I don’t think it’s right to talk about our chief executive in the way you did,’ he said. ‘He’s a man of great values, great integrity. He knows more about retail than anyone in this world. He’s the right guy to be serving us right now.’