Astrazeneca says it's 'too big' to base CEO's pay packet on FTSE 100 peers

AstraZeneca's remuneration committee chair, Sheri McCoy, has argued that the pharmaceutical behemoth is too large and intricate to benchmark its CEO's salary against the rest of the FTSE index. In the company's annual report, McCoy stated that "UK-listed FTSE companies are not the right peer group for us to use" due to AstraZeneca's "size, complexity and global footprint."

This comes as the firm awarded a £14.7m pay package to CEO Pascal Soriot for the most recent financial year, a decrease from the previous year's £17.3m, primarily due to the long-term incentive component, as reported by City AM.

In the last annual general meeting, AstraZeneca faced substantial pushback from key shareholders over proposed amendments to its remuneration policy.

Despite the resistance, the changes were approved at the AGM, although a significant portion of investors voted against them.

Since then, McCoy has been working to gain the backing of major shareholders and has committed to providing clearer explanations for future remuneration policies.<