Investor Fidelity backs May plan for binding shareholder votes in UK

LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) - One of the biggest investors in Britain, Fidelity International, threw its weight on Tuesday behind a plan from Theresa May to clamp down on executive pay, in an early boost for Britain's new prime minister.

Fidelity International, which has 185 billion pounds ($246 billion) of assets under management across a number of markets, said that May's proposal to make shareholder votes binding would give investors a strong hand in influencing company policy.

"(It) will add significant momentum to our efforts to better align executive pay rewards with shareholder interests," Dominic Rossi, Global Chief Investment Officer of Equities at Fidelity International, said in a statement.

Fidelity has been calling for companies to adopt incentive plans that foster long-term thinking among executives.

Britain has seen a resurgence of investor activism over high pay in the last year, with WPP (LSE: WPP.L - news) , BP and others all facing criticism at annual general meetings.

May, who became prime minister last week, used a speech before she was elected to set out her plans for the economy, arguing that it did not work for everyone in society and needed to be reformed.

Her proposals included making shareholder votes on corporate pay binding. She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) also said she wanted to see more transparency around bonus targets and the publication of the ratio between a CEO's pay and that of the average company worker. ($1 = 0.7637 pounds) (Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Tom Heneghan)