Barclays shareholders back executive pay deals

British banking group Barclays today overcame attacks on its executive pay policy.

Nearly 93% of shareholders in the company voted in favour of its remuneration report at its annual meeting in London.

However, the report received slightly fewer votes in favour than all the other resolutions put before the meeting, which was held at the QE2 Conference Centre.

Pension and corporate government watchdogs had criticised Barclays for awards made to Chief Executive Matt Barrett and other directors under the company’s incentive schemes. One group, PIRC, labelled the awards “excessive”.

Mr Barrett received a total remuneration package of £3.09m (€4.6m) in 2003 compared with £1.7m (€2.5m) in 2002.

One shareholder accused the bank, which made pre tax profits of £3.8bn (€5.7bn) in 2003, of under performance.

He said: “Why should a director be able to achieve a massive increase like that when the total performance of the bank is well below what it should be?”

Barclays chairman Sir Peter Middleton replied that the chief executive’s pay was very closely related to the company’s performance.

“We are very happy to pay for good results,” he said.

The chairman of the company’s remuneration committee, Sir Nigel Rudd, added that the company had to attract the very best talent as it was the ninth biggest bank in the world.

“No one would thank us if we had second-rank people working for the bank.”