Investors give RSA a bloody nose over Stephen Hester's pay plan

Investors in RSA gave the board a bloody nose on Friday when a third of votes at the insurer's annual meeting failed to back the pay plan for its chief executive Stephen Hester.

Several top institutional investors - including RSA's largest shareholder, the activists Cevian - either voted against the package or abstained.

It is the latest remuneration rebellion for Mr Hester, who was dragged into successive pay controversies in his previous job running Royal Bank of Scotland.

However, in contrast to RBS, where he was forced to give up bonuses, RSA is planning to press ahead with its pay plan.

Two-thirds of eligible votes actively supported his package. Excluding withheld votes, the support level was 84 per cent.

Critical investors, including Cevian, were concerned about RSA's plan to award Mr Hester as much as 300 per cent of his annual salary in a share-based, long-term incentive plan.

It means he could be in line for a package worth about £5.7m this year if he hits a series of performance targets. Some investors thought the maximum award should have been lower, as they had believed a similar award made the previous year would have been an exception.

A significant number of votes were also cast against the re-election of Hugh Mitchell, RSA's remuneration committee chairman.

The rebels are concerned about performance as well as pay. Mr Hester has set out plans for disposals, cost cuts and operational improvements since he took the helm more than a year ago, but the shares have failed to bounce back.

Despite the protest on Friday, leading investors have said they are prepared to give Mr Hester - hired to revive RSA after a series of profit warnings - time to turn round the group.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

It had added: "Stephen's overall package reflects the remuneration committee's view that he performed well in 2014."

"It was recognised that the company fell short of its underlying profitability target for the year, which was reflected in the financial element of his bonus.

"However, considerable progress was made with the business review with substantial outperformance achieved with the disposal programme and portfolio exits.

"The recapitalisation of the business was achieved ahead of targets and expenses were reduced ahead of plan.

"Those elements of performance most controllable by management also exceeded their planned outcomes - namely current year underwriting profit, excluding Ireland, and investment income. This was considered a significant personal achievement by Stephen."

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation