PARIS, May 4 (Reuters) - Sanofi shareholders on Monday approved the remuneration of its new CEO, Olivier Brandicourt, and that of the former, Chris Viehbacher, with one vote less than the 65% when the other solutions were adopted with at least the 93%.
Olivier Brandicourt's salary received 64,77% of the votes in favour, against 61,59% for that received by Chris Viehbacher last year. That of Serge Weinberg - who led the general management of the group for almost five months - was instead approved by almost 98%.
Chris Viehbacher's successor will receive a total of a "welcome bonus" of €4,000,000 intended to compensate for the material benefits he lost by leaving his position with Bayer, a level considered "incomprehensible" by Stéphane Le Foll, the spokesman of the government.
To this sum is added a gross annual salary of 1.2 million euros and a bonus.
The consultancy firm ISS Voti had recommended voting against the resolution linked to the arrival of Olivier Brandicourt's package, challenging in particular the absence of a separate vote for each of the commitments undertaken towards him.
In a leaflet distributed on the doorstep of the General Assembly in Paris, the CGT argued that in 2014, Group employees received no collective raises and that their individual raises do not exceed 1%.
“Out of the €62,000 of net income that each Sanofi employee generated from his or her work in 2014, shareholders will grab €50,000,” the CGT said.
Sanofi, which has 110,000 employees worldwide, including 27,000 in France, made net income of 6.8 billion euros last year. The group remunerated its shareholders with 5,477,000 euros through distributions and share buybacks.
Among the groups that have already held their meetings, many have seen executive pay challenged by their shareholders.
At Danone, the resolution on the remuneration of Franck Riboud in 2014 was narrowly approved, the 47% of the shareholders of the food group voted against.
Renault's shareholders also contested the remuneration of Carlos Ghosn, who got only 58.33% of votes "in favour" when Xavier Huillard, CEO of Vinci, got only 63.21% of votes "yes".
(Noelle Mennella, edited by Cyril Altmeyer)
