Non-executive directors see salary increases above rate of inflation

It has been revealed that the average non-executive director of a FTSE 100 company received £58,595 a year in 2009, which represents a 5.1% increase between 2008 and 2009. This comes at a time when non-executive chairman have seen their salaries boosted to an average of £334,463 which is an increase of 6.7% over the same period.

This will be a bitter blow to shareholders in the UK have seen the value of their investments fall dramatically over the last two years as the worldwide recession and the UK recession impacted upon business activity. When you consider the number of bonus and salary propositions which have been voted down by shareholders over the last few months it looks as though we could see further conflict in the short to medium term. Never have we seen shareholders pursuing remuneration packages for directors as wholeheartedly as we have seen over the last 12 months.

In the boom times there was little friction between shareholders and directors with remuneration packages very rarely challenged by institutional or private shareholders. However, with many companies trying to push through salary and bonus increases at a time of falling profits this has prompted a furious response from many shareholders.