NEARLY one quarter of John Menzies shareholder votes went against the pay awards set out for executives in the company remuneration report at its annual general meeting.
The pay that had been set for the previous chief executive before he left was £400,000, up from £357,000, while remuneration for Giles Wilson, who is currently acting chief executive, was set at £331,500, and for secretary John Geddes it was £255,000.
Mr Black received about £1.3 million in in total 2018 which included long term incentives. The report on pay scales had over 22 per cent of the votes cast against it at the AGM in Edinburgh.
The 52 million votes it did receive represented 77.13% of those cast with 24,244, withheld.
The group said it is on course to meet targets this year and is weeks away from appointing a new chief executive.
In March Menzies said former chief executive Forsyth Black had left with immediate effect.
He was earlier praised for the contribution he had made to the company including his role in the revival and subsequent disposal of its newspaper and magazine distribution for £74.5m to the Endless private equity firm.
The firm last month recruited veteran of the aviation services industry Mervyn Walker to the management team to support a push for growth in the sector, on which the group has focused after offloading the newspaper distribution business last year.
Mr Wilson said: “I am pleased to report we are on track to meet our expectations. We have started the year well commercially with key contracts renewed and new contracts won and our recently launched efficiency programme is progressing well and benefits are being delivered. We have a strong and experienced team in place and I am confident that by continuing to deploy leading edge systems and processes that we will deliver our customers needs and sustainably grow our business.”All the directors were re-elected.
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