There was a vote by Abcam (ABC) shareholders last week on a new Remuneration Policy including a new “Profitable Growth Incentive Plan (PGIP)”. I voted against them because the proposals seemed very generous to me particularly bearing in mind that they are in addition to existing bonus and LTIP schemes and could involve up to 2.8% of shares being awarded to participants in the scheme (including 1.36 million shares to the CEO, currently valued at £14.25 per share).
The outcome of the vote was that 46% of shareholders voted against the revised Remuneration Policy and 44% against the PGIP. The company says that those who use proxy advisors did not support the resolutions but that “Abcam’s Remuneration Committee received positive indications of support for the final proposals following an extensive consultation process” prior to the meeting.
It seems the company plans to do nothing about this substantial opposition to the remuneration proposals which I consider most unfortunate. All they say is “The Board remains firmly committed to maintaining an open dialogue with its shareholders to ensure it fully understands their views and it will continue to constructively engage with those shareholders who were unable to support the proposals”. This is simply not good enough. I will also be voting against the current Chairman in future as I have done in the past after he failed to answer some simple questions I posed at a previous AGM.
This company’s financial performance has been declining in recent years. Perhaps the PGIP was designed to incentivise improvements in that regard but I think the directors and managers have incentives enough.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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