Shell faces shareholder anger over bonus scheme

Oil giant Shell was today set to face anger from shareholders over a new package of rewards for its senior executives.

At the group’s annual general meeting in London today, shareholders were being asked to vote on plans to grant senior executives shares worth up to twice the value of their salary.

The proposed incentive scheme is in addition to a remuneration package which saw chairman Sir Phillip Watts earn £1.8m last year – at a time when both Shell’s profits and share price fell.

Union activists – angered by recent announcements of job cuts in Shell plants in Lowestoft, Suffolk, and Aberdeen, have called for shareholders to reject the scheme.

Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Amicus, said: “The timing of this announcement is astonishing and in total disregard to the hundreds of workers devastated to be losing their jobs in recent weeks and the thousands more who fear they are next to go.”

Meanwhile the National Association of of Pension Funds, whose members own about one fifth of the stock market, is recommending a vote against the remuneration package saying that the company has not provided enough information.

A spokesman for the association said: “Our main issue with Shell is that their remuneration report doesn’t include enough information for us or shareholders to make a judgment about whether the performance criteria that directors have to meet are suitably challenging.”

But a spokesman for Shell said the company had been engaged in dialogue with shareholders on the plan.