Sports Direct, the U.K.’s biggest sporting-goods retailer, said investors approved a multimillion-pound bonus for billionaire founder Mike Ashley, succeeding in passing an award that was blocked twice before.
A proposed bonus plan in which Ashley is eligible to participate was supported by 60.4 percent of shareholders, the company said today in a statement after its annual general meeting in Shirebrook, England.
Sports Direct has faced a barrage of criticism for its efforts to reward Ashley, who owns a 58 percent stake, but as yet, has never received a salary for his role as deputy chairman.
The U.K. Institute of Directors said yesterday that the retailer’s latest plan was “excessively generous.”
Sports Direct Chairman Keith Hellawell said today that the company had responded to feedback from shareholders, who in April rejected a bonus package for Ashley that would have given him 8 million shares, worth £58 million at current prices.
Now it is allegedly more like £200m!
Ashley, who founded the company in 1982, has an estimated wealth of about £3.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.