One of UK’s highest-paid female executives faces shareholder backlash over £29m bonus

Avril Palmer-Baunack, chief executive of British Car Auctions (BCA), which owns We Buy Any Car, is in line for the huge payout

Shareholders can vote on the company’s remuneration report at an annual general meeting on Thursday but the vote is only advisory

One of the UK’s highest-paid female executives faces a shareholder revolt over her £29m bonus.

Avril Palmer-Baunack, chief executive of British Car Auctions (BCA), which owns We Buy Any Car, is in line for the huge payout thanks to a deal agreed four years ago.

Since then the company’s share price has risen, meaning the shares Ms Palmer-Baunack will now collect are worth more 59 times her annual salary of £525,000.

Shareholders can vote on the company’s remuneration report at an annual general meeting on Thursday but the vote is only advisory meaning that the chief executive may still take the bonus.

Advisory firm Glass Lewis has recommended that shareholders vote against the package which it says is “extremely disproportionate”.

The deal dwarfs Ms Palmer-Baunack’s £7.2m pay-out in 2015. Questioned about that bonus, she said: “Anyone who says they don’t want money is talking bollocks.We all want to earn money for our family.”

News of her latest bonus comes as companies face increasing anger from investors over excessive executive pay.

Theresa May last year ordered the creation of the world’s first public register of companies who have ignored shareholder votes and awarded “pay rises to bosses that far outstrip the company’s performance”

The boss of housebuilder Persimmon, Jeff Fairburn, handed back £25m of his £100m share award earlier this year after a public backlash.

Mr Fairburn's £75m bonus is equivalent to the annual earnings of 4,100 staff on the Real Living Wage.