Nearly a third of shareholders in online betting exchange Betfair on Thursday voted against pay and bonus arrangements for the company's directors.
Corporate governance group ISS had recommended investors vote against Betfair's boardroom pay deals, arguing the performance requirement for one long-term, share-based bonus had been made easier "contrary to standard market practice".
Some 24m shares, 32% of votes cast, were against Betfair's remuneration report, with a further 2.2m abstention votes underlining the unpopularity of the group's executive pay deals. Last year, only 4.6% or shareholders voted against the pay report.
A spokesman for Betfair said: "The board understands that it is the policy of certain shareholders to oppose any amendments to targets and discussions with those shareholders voting against this resolution highlighted the change to the 2011 [long-term award] as the cause of opposition. The current management does not participate in this scheme and the remuneration of current management was not raised in any of these shareholder discussions."
Before the meeting, however, there had also been separate criticsm from another corporate governance group Pirc, which had taken issue with pay arrangements for chief executive Breon Corcoran, suggesting he could be entitled to a bonus of up to 380% of his salary. It described performance benchmarks as "not adequate" and suggested share rewards were released too quickly.
Corcoran's pay package was worth £1.28m for 2014, according to the annual report, down from £3.7m the previous year, when he joined the business. His 2013 remuneration was boosted by a "golden hello" of restricted share awards and payments to cover his relocation from Ireland.
A Pirc report, issued earlier this week, told investors: "Awarded [Betfair] CEO pay is not considered in line with the company's financial performance over the last five years."
Pirc had recommended a binding vote against Betfair's boardroom pay policy, but investors instead chose to target the resolution on the company's remuneration report – a milder protest as the result is not binding on the board.
There was only a small ripple of protest from shareholders in relation to Betfair's annual report, with 6% of votes case either against or in abstention to the resolution.
A usually uncontentious matter, this vote to receive the financial statements of directors and auditors KPMG attracted controversy after Betfair was forced to concede in its 2014 annual report that it had technically breached certain rules relating to dividends and share buybacks in past years.