Boohoo braces for shareholder revolt over executive pay

Advisory group ISS has told investors to vote against Boohoo’s pay policy at its AGM, according to The Sunday Times, after claiming that there was a lack of explanation for the fashion etailer’s £1m payment to Lyttle or for hefty pay increases of between 18% and 30% to other directors.

Boohoo insists the award to Lyttle, which came after he joined from Primark, was to compensate him for payments he forfeited when quitting the high street giant. Boohoo said that payment, and the reasoning for it, were both disclosed to the stock market back in July last year.

It added that other salary increases had been made after benchmarking Boohoo against companies of a similar size.

The online fashion operator is now one of the biggest companies on AIM, with a value of more than £4.5bn. But AIM is more lightly regulated than the main market.

Former Boohoo chair Peter Williams left last year amid an alleged falling out with co-founder Mahmud Kamani over the company’s corporate governance. Kamani is now executive chair of the business.

As well as his £1m golden hello, Lyttle is also in line for a £50m share award if he can take Boohoo’s market cap beyond £6bn by March 2024.

Its share price has risen by more than a fifth this year as shoppers switched to shopping online during lockdown.