Betfair shareholders divided over executive pay & rewards

Following its annual general meeting, nearly a third of Betfair shareholders voted against rewarding the operators executive management.

The clash over executive pay comes in the week that Shareholder and corporate governance adviser Pirc had recommended that Betfair investor’s reject the operator’s interim report and accounts at the general meeting, due to the operator’s dividend misconduct over the past three years.

Pirc further described the operators performance benchmarks as being ‘not adequate’ and suggested that the executive rewards were too quickly and easily awarded. The governance group recommended Betfair investors to request a review of the operators executive rewards structure and performance benchmarks.

Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran’s pay package was worth £1.28m for 2014, according to the annual remuneration report, down from £3.7m the previous year, when Corcoran joined the operator.

Thursdays annual general meeting saw 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.

Betfair senior management have hit back at Pirc’s reports and statements, suggesting that misconduct on dividend pay was due to technicalities rather than corporate performance, they further commented that  Pirc statements were not a fair reflection of the operators progress under the guidance of Breon Corcoran and his management team.