Whitbread boss Alison Brittain hit by bruising pay revolt

Whitbread boss Alison Brittain suffered a bloody nostril after a large pay revolt on the firm’s annual basic assembly.

More than 38 per cent of voters opposed the Premier Inn proprietor’s pay packet for its administrators in an advisory vote.

Whitbread stated that it might ‘continue to engage constructively with shareholders’ following the revolt.

It got here as Brittain pocketed a complete of £2.16million for the yr to March, together with a bonus of greater than £1million.

Critics slammed the chief government’s resolution to take the bonus regardless of the corporate taking £118million in enterprise charges aid and furlough funds, which it has not paid again, throughout the yr.

The scale of the revolt additionally means Whitbread will be a part of the Investment Association’s record of disgrace over fats cat pay – a register of corporations the place 20 per cent or extra of shareholders oppose boardroom earnings.

The revolt follows comparable criticism of Whitbread from shareholders and politicians final yr when it paid a bonus regardless of claiming a whole lot of tens of millions of kilos in help from the British taxpayer.

The backlash ultimately pushed Brittain to scrap a £729,000 bonus that had been deferred by the board throughout the pandemic.

Whitbread is the most recent main UK agency to see buyers revolt over ranges of government pay.

Drugs large GlaxoSmithKline, meals supply group Ocado and financial institution Standard Chartered have all confronted massive shareholder revolts.

The rebellions had been a humiliation for GSK chief government Emma Walmsley, her Ocado counterpart Tim Steiner and banker Bill Winters, three of the best-paid bosses in Britain.