Investors halt Pendragon bonus hikes

The car dealer Pendragon has been forced to tear up its plans to sharply boost its bosses' pay after more than two-thirds of shareholders voted down its remuneration report.

The scale of the revolt is one of the biggest yet seen in a spring of shareholder activism which has seen shareholders finally calling time on rising executive pay.

The group also suffered a 26 per cent vote against the re-election of the chairman, Mike Davies, with 14 per cent against the chief executive, Trevor Finn.

Just 32.82 per cent of shareholders backed Pendragon on that issue. It had outlined plans to sharply increase executive bonuses from 100 per cent of base salary to 150 per cent and enhance share based "long term incentive" payments.

The company withdrew the proposed changes.