Clarksons faces another shareholder revolt on pay this week as proxy firms recommend voting down the London-listed shipbroker’s remuneration policy.
And the huge salary and bonus package being banked by chief executive Andi Case is beginning to be noticed by the mainstream press.
Case is rewarded both as a CEO and one of the highest fee-earning brokers in shipping, taking home £11.9m ($15.1m) last year.
This makes him one of the highest-paid bosses among London-listed companies.
Shareholders will deliver their verdict again at the annual general meeting in London on Thursday.
The Sunday Times reported proxy adviser Glass Lewis has recommended shareholders oppose the remuneration report.
Another proxy advisory, Pirc, has followed suit.
According to This Is Money, Glass Lewis said that although Case and chief financial officer and operating chief Jeff Woyda had waived part of their bonus in previous years, a company’s pay policy “should not rely on the goodwill of its executives to mitigate excessive payouts”.
Last May, investors rebelled in increased numbers, with votes on the pay policy and the remuneration report garnering support among only 56%.
This was down from nearly 63% in 2022, but not as close as in 2019, when Clarksons got over the line with only 51%.
In the big league
This Is Money covered the issue with a lurid headline screaming “shipping shame”.
The report also noted: “Clarksons is a little-known business outside the world of shipbroking.”
Case earned more than the CEO of banking giant HSBC, Noel Quinn, who pocketed £10.6m, Tesco’s Ken Murphy at £10m, Shell boss Wael Sawan at £8m and BP’s Murray Auchincloss, also at £8m.
The figure is almost treble what shipping behemoth AP Moller-Maersk paid CEO Vincent Clerc last year.
But Case remains behind several leading FTSE 100 bosses, including AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot, who took home £17m.
The revolt last year was enough to put Clarksons on a list logging shareholder dissent maintained by the Investment Association.
Clarksons has been contacted for comment.
Woyda earned £350,000, plus a bonus of £2.7m, for a total of £3.7m, up from £3.3m the year before.
Director Tim Miller, chairman of the remuneration committee, told TradeWinds: “Clarksons’ shareholders have benefited from 18 years of sustained and strategic investment led by Andi Case, which has delivered the world’s leading shipping services business, a UK success story, and an increase in value under Andi’s tenure of over 1,800%, from £62m to over £1.2bn today.”
Miller explained at the time of the annual report in April that executive pay arrangements were in line with those of other leading bosses in its market.
“It is essential that we retain and attract the best colleagues and leaders in a highly competitive market,” he said.
The company said it continues to recognise the need to pay other staff appropriately, with 83% of the workforce receiving bonuses for 2023, and 67% winning salary increases.
The bonus level increased by 6%.
After waiving £5.5m in favour of bonus pools for colleagues over the past nine years, Case and Woyda are keeping all their money from 2023.
Net profit was £85.8m last year, up from £79.6m in 2022.
Record underlying pre-tax earnings were £109.2m, compared with £100.9m the year before.
