Business Times reports that on Friday in its annual report, Naspers said it was confident it had addressed shareholder concerns about its executive pay policy after months of discussions with investors.  

Last year, the company received an unprecedented backlash against its pay policy when nearly two-thirds of ordinary shareholders voted against the pay policy.  The company indicated that had improved transparency with a remuneration report in 2018 that had been doubled to 24 pages, while it had made changes to pay structures to align management and shareholder interests, in addition to an overhaul of its remuneration committee.  Aileen O'Toole, Naspers' chief people officer, said she was "confident" that the group had addressed the main shareholder concerns over pay.  She indicated that, in addition to engagements with shareholders, Naspers had also spoken to external advisers and benchmarked its pay to competitors' to make sure it retained staff.  Naspers had also made "design changes" to ensure tighter alignment between management and shareholders by introducing clawback provisions linked to the incentive schemes of all executive directors.  The report showed that CEO Bob van Dijk's total pay for the year to March declined 3% to some R164-million because the value of his share options had shrank.

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