Finance
More investors rebel against European firms' executive pay plans
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 1, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 1, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Investor opposition to executive pay in Europe rose by 23%, with Spain seeing the highest dissent. Key issues include early vesting and low shareholding requirements.
By Simon Jessop
LONDON (Reuters) -The number of Europe's biggest listed firms to face investor unrest over their executive pay plans rose by nearly a quarter this year, led by a jump in revolts at meetings in Spain, data from corporate governance consultants Georgeson showed.
Among major companies in nine of Europe's biggest stock markets to put future remuneration plans to the vote this year, 37.9% received over 10% opposition, up from 30.7% a year earlier, a report showed. This represented a 23% increase in the number of firms.
Among blue-chip names to face pushback were Britain's InterContinental Hotels Group, which saw just 69.5% of investors back its plan; and Italian bank UniCredit, which got 66.5% support.
For the first time, the scale of opposition to future pay policy - which can prompt a company to change its plans - exceeded that for the pay report on the year that had ended.
"Investors appear more willing to challenge executive pay through a more confrontational and disruptive approach by opposing companies' binding remuneration policy resolution frameworks," Georgeson Global Chief Executive Cas Sydorowitz said.
"By voting 'against' such resolutions, investors directly challenge future executive compensation structures, which also include long-term incentive plans."
The biggest jump in opposition was in Spain, where more than half of votes were contested. In Britain, home to Europe's biggest stock market by capitalisation, 25% of votes received material opposition.
In all, six of the nine markets tracked, including Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, saw an increase in opposition to pay policies.
Louise Dudley, portfolio manager at Federated Hermes, said in comments alongside the data that the objections cited included long-term incentive awards that vest too early, and insufficient shareholding requirements for key leaders.
Yousif Ebeed, corporate governance lead at asset manager Schroders, meanwhile, said support continued to rest on "sufficiently stretching performance targets and clear alignment between executive pay outcomes and company performance".
(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
This year, 37.9% of Europe's largest listed firms received over 10% opposition, up from 30.7% the previous year.
Among the companies facing pushback were InterContinental Hotels Group in Britain and UniCredit in Italy, receiving 69.5% and 66.5% support, respectively.
Investors cited issues such as long-term incentive awards vesting too early and insufficient shareholding alignment as reasons for their objections.
Spain experienced the largest jump in opposition, with more than half of the votes contested.
Voting 'against' remuneration policies allows investors to challenge future executive compensation structures, including long-term incentive plans.
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