Berkeley shareholders may revolt over £1.2m Pidgley payment

The prospect of a shareholder revolt at next Friday's annual meeting of the Berkeley Group has heightened as a result of a company statement made on the London Stock Exchange today (Friday).

Roger Lewis, chairman, says that Berkeley plans to push ahead its the proposal to hand over an extra £1.2m of back-payment to chief executive Tony Pidgley as part of an incentive plan from which he was originally excluded by mistake.

The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) hit the roof a week ago when the proposal was first unveiled, calling for shareholders to vote down the plan.

Today's statement by Lewis says that the board members still stand the Remuneration Review which means that Pidgley's name will retrospectively be added to the list of beneficiaries. "The board stress that this is a one-off occurrence," said Lewis.

The only gesture aimed at heading off further protest is the proposal that shareholders, including the NAPF, will get the chance to approve a new long-term incentive scheme in the autumn.

Last week's statement from Berkeley was slammed in the press as a "fawning apology". The incentive plan in question was set up back in 2000 and there had not been a squeak about Pidgley's omission from it for more than two years.

Shareholders were not consulted about the proposed change and only learnt of the decision by reading the latest annual report and accounts.