Bloomberg reports that Naspers shareholder Allan Gray plans to vote against the company’s remuneration policy because it is not aligned to the performance of the business outside a stake in Chinese media giant Tencent Holdings.  

Naspers paid CEO Bob van Dijk $2.2m in the year to end-March, an increase of 32%, and awarded him $10.4m in long-term share options.  That corresponded with a period in which the Cape Town-based company reported a trading profit of $2.75bn — but a loss of $379m when Tencent was stripped out.  The pay plan "is not aligned with shareholders’ interests, the disclosure is poor, and the performance targets appear to be very easy to achieve.  On top of that, they are now also proposing to shorten the vesting periods for the long-term incentives," Pieter Koornhof of Allan Gray said.  Allan Gray owns about 2.3% of Naspers stock.  But, Naspers’ board believes its remuneration policy and practice are "fit for purpose and compare well to those of many of our global peers".

• Read this report by Loni Prinsloo in full at BusinessLive
• See too, Naspers investor Allan Gray to oppose executive pay policy, at BusinessTech

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