AstraZeneca, the assembly approves Soriot's maxi-salary despite the battle of some investors
The battle of some large AstraZeneca shareholder funds has made the paycheck of CEO Pascal Soriot less certain, but has not been able to block. The shareholders' meeting of the pharmaceutical company in fact approved the remuneration policies of top management by measure, despite the fact that the proxy advisors (companies specialized in 'advising' investors on the positions to be adopted at the meeting) had targeted the salary of the managing director , inviting the shareholders to vote against.
The green light came thanks to the "yes" of 60.19% of the votes cast, while a "significant proportion" expressed a contrary opinion, as admitted by AstraZeneca itself.
The new remuneration policies bring the maximum annual bonus for Soriot in 2021 to 2.5 times the base salary, against the 2 times set as the ceiling by the previous policy, and allow him to be awarded long-term share bonuses for a value of up to 6, 5 times his salary (from 5.5).
On the eve of the meeting, controversy had arisen over the payroll which could reach 18 million pounds, or over 20 million euros, so much so that two of the heaviest investors in the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant, namely Aviva Investors and Standard Life Aberdeen, they had considered the pay and bonuses “excessive”. Positions from which other shareholders had distanced themselves, such as Samuel Johar, chairman of Buchanan Harvey, who al times He said: “I think shareholders will eventually approve Pascal's pay increase. He's worth all that money."
An AZ spokesman said executive compensation is linked "to the success of our strategy and returns to shareholders. Since their appointment, our executive leaders have spearheaded a remarkable turnaround in the company's performance. This has resulted in AstraZeneca achieving a total shareholder return of nearly 300% over the past eight years.
Note: AstraZeneca it is the only one that has pledged not to profit from its Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic. It reported doubling its net income in the first quarter as sales of the anti-covid serum hit 275 million dollars. The pharmaceutical company generated a net profit of 1.56 billion dollars in the first three months of the year, specifying however that this result is due to extraordinary operations on other drugs. So far he would distribute 224 million doses, the vast majority went to Europe.
Related news: The EU wants another 90 million doses from AstraZeneca: second legal action and threat of sanctions
