GVC Holdings stakeholders fight executive pays

Investors of the UK gambling firm are fighting “excessively disproportionate” paychecks to two company bosses for £67 million.

UK.- Two of the GVC Holdings PLC bosses’ have received paychecks worth £67 million and have angered investors over the “excessively disproportionate” amount. They were told by advice firms Pirc and Glass Lewis to fight GVC Chairman Larry Feldman and CEO Kenny Alexander’s payments at the company’s annual meeting in Gibraltar on June 6th.

Feldman will be awarded with a £22.5 million check over share options, while Alexander will receive £45 million. According to Glass Lewis, Alexander’s pay is estimated to be 550 times larger than what an average employee gets and considered it to be “excessively disproportionate.”

“Clearly they’ve completely disregarded the strong vote against last year and are continuing with a similar approach to pay,” High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said to The Guardian. “You’d hope that there will be an even stronger vote against this year.”

However, Hildyard explained that the investors’ vote has no influence over the payments as its only advisory. “This case demonstrates that even when shareholders do oppose egregious awards, which doesn’t happen often enough, the company doesn’t have to do anything about it,” he added.