Protest vote over ALS’s $1.48m exec retention pay
ALS has suffered a first strike against its pay practices, despite the chairman saying the laboratory testing giant had been placed in a “ridiculous situation” around remuneration disclosure laws that compelled it to pay nearly $1.5 million in retention bonuses.
The protest vote came as Brisbane-based ALS, which has 19,000 staff globally testing everything from water to gold samples, said it would refrain from taking a stance on the Voice to parliament referendum.
ALS is one of the world’s major testing companies. Attila Csaszar
The company also predicted underlying earnings for the first six months of this financial year would fall about 5 per cent to between $150 million and $155 million, at ALS’ annual general meeting on Wednesday. ALS shares were down 1.3 per cent to $11.30.
ALS is one of the world’s major testing and inspection companies, with a focus on commodities and life-sciences.
But,as flagged in The Australian Financial Review, it faced a protest vote on its remuneration policy. Institutional Shareholder Services, which provides proxy advice to investors, has recommended shareholders reject the remuneration report partly due to ALS awarding two senior executives retention bonuses which require them only to keep working.
The retention bonuses were paid to two executives who missed out on the top job, after ALS’ chief executive Raj Naran left suddenly earlier this year to be replaced by Malcolm Deane.
ALS chairman Bruce Phillips said all other major proxy advisers had been in favour of the remuneration report, yet almost 28 per cent of votes cast were against the pay packages. That meant ALS suffered a “first strike” under Australia’s two-strike rule.
Investor George Baumber also questioned the payouts. “Why
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