De La Rue and Dunelm braced for a backlash
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De La Rue and Dunelm brace for a backlash: Several companies face bloody shareholder meetings amid squabbles over pay and performance
- Dunelm braced for shareholder revolt over boss Nick Wilkinson’s £2.7m salary
- Link Group also faces concerns about management remuneration
- De La Rue hasn’t fared well since losing the contract to print post-Brexit passports
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Several companies are facing bloody shareholder meetings this week amid squabbles over pay and performance.
Furniture company Dunelm, fund regulator Link Group and banknote printer De La Rue are preparing for confrontations with investors.
Founded in 1979, Dunelm sells curtains from a market stall in Leicester and is bracing for a shareholder revolt over boss Nick Wilkinson’s £2.7m pay package. The home furnishing chain, which holds its annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, is outraged by the “excessive” pay – 120 times what an average worker earns.
Facing the music: Several companies are facing bloody shareholder meetings this week amid squabbles over pay and performance
Shareholder advisory group Pirc has told investors to vote against the company’s pay report, saying the pay gap is “unacceptable.”
The opposition comes despite Wilkinson’s salary falling from £3.8 million. Andrew Speke, from the High Pay Centre, said Dunelm was ‘tone deaf’. ‘
The call to vote against is absolutely justified,” he said. “Most workers’ wages have fallen in real terms.”
Link Group, whose role in the Neil Woodford investment fund scandal has seen it face multi-million pound fines, is also facing turmoil over the remuneration of its directors.
The Australian company, whose AGM is Wednesday, paid CEO Vivek Bhatia more than half a million pounds last year.
Pirc again advises shareholders to vote against the pay report, because the boss could receive more than 200 percent of his salary in incentives. It comes as Link tries to sell his UK arm, which was supposed to oversee Woodford’s management of his flagship investment fund.
De La Rue has not performed well since losing the lucrative contract to print UK post-Brexit blue passports in 2018. Now one of its largest investors, activist fund Crystal Amber, wants the company to explore a sale to return cash to long-suffering shareholders.
In an unusual twist, the two firms have become embroiled in a feud, with De La Rue accusing Crystal Amber of conspiracy to commit “market manipulation” and Crystal Amber accusing the company he invests in of defamation.
De La Rue has called a meeting for Friday to allow investors to vote on the future of chairman Kevin Loosemore following the company’s third profit warning in a year last week.