David Tyler, a boardroom veteran and chairman of two major companies,faced an embarrassing revolt over his continued tenure on the board of credit checking firm Experian, on a day when shareholders also rebelled against pay schemes at Network Rail and the two demerged arms of Cable & Wireless.
Nearly one in three Experian investors failed to endorse Tyler's re-election to the board as a non-executive – one of the biggest protest votes against a director this year. According to Manifest, the corporate governance experts, the average dissent on director elections is only 2.3%.
More than 12% of shareholders in Experian voted against Tyler's re-election but, when deliberate abstentions were included, the protest rose to 30%.
Experian was spun out of GUS in 2006 which has prompted shareholders to question Tyler's independence as he was finance director of GUS.
Experian insisted that Tyler, who is Chairman of J Sainsbury and Logica, was an "excellent non-executive and brings a huge amount of expertise and depth of knowledge".
At Network Rail, the Department for Transport made a rare intervention by abstaining on the remuneration report to protest against the £613,000 bonus to chief executive Iain Coucher. Network Rail has 100 "members" who in effect act as shareholders. DfT, which is one, said it had abstained because dissent would have "meant that we would be voting against a pay freeze for Network Rail's executives and their plans to review their management incentive plan."
Some 77 of the 100 Network Rail members voted, with 37 in favour, 31 against and nine abstentions.
Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Cable & Wireless Communications also felt shareholder ire at their first annual meetings as separate firms. At CWC, which runs networks around the globe, one in five shareholders voted against its remuneration report with another 4% abstaining. Corporate governance group Pirc had warned salaries were too high, and objected to bonuses linked to absolute shareholder return with no requirement to outperform other companies in the telecoms sector.
Cable & Wireless angered investors three years ago over a lucrative "long-term incentive plan" which has paid out £8.3m to then chief executive John Pluthero. He now chairs CWW, the UK arm which issued a profit warning , and was rebuked by some investors. More than 12% of CWW's investors either voted against its remuneration report or abstained. Its chief executive Jim Marsh had a £150,000 pay rise to £650,000.
"The pay of FTSE100 executives is completely out of kilter, and I believe it is becoming a social evil," said John Farmer, a shareholder. Pluthero, who admitted he did not know how much he had earned since joining C& W, insisted that executive pay was in line with shareholder interests.
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