Shell’s generous remuneration policy for senior executives will be in the spotlight at today’s shareholders meetings in The Hague and London, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

But despite the criticism, opposition to this year’s bonus structure is likely to be limited to a minority of shareholders because of the oil giant’s good performance, the paper says. In 2009 shareholders rejected the bonus proposals.
Pirc, a British organisation which advises shareholders on how to vote at AGMs, is the most vocal critic and recommending members vote against, the FD says.
Not challenging
Pirc analyst Patricia Bradley describes the performance demands as ‘not challenging’ and says ‘ the remuneration for the last year is excessive, with the board chairman being given a performance-related package of 526% times his basic salary.’
CEO Peter Voser’s total package amounted to some €11.4m over last year.
But Errol Keyner, deputy director of the Dutch investors’ lobby group VEB, says Voser’s package is ‘enormous’.
‘But we are not communists,’ he said. ‘Shell is an enormous company and booked profit of more than $30bn. Voser has done good work… a few years ago the rewards were enormous but the performance considerably less. That cannot be defended.’