Old Mutual gets rough ride over share bonus plan at AGM

(Reuters) - Old Mutual (OML.L) shareholders approved an employee share bonus plan on Friday, although the Anglo-South African financial services group faced a backlash over granting non-performance based awards to executives.

Influential shareholder advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) had advised shareholders to vote against the policy, saying no performance conditions will apply.

Some 22.68 percent of shareholders at Old Mutual's annual general meeting opposed the plan under which executives will be eligible to participate in performance-based long-term incentive plans and also receive awards under a share ownership plan.

Old Mutual said that under the employee share ownership plan a substantial proportion of the executives' annual bonuses will be deferred into OML shares and from time to time new executives may be eligible for buyout awards not subject to performance.

Earlier Old Mutual said the next stage of a planned break-up of the group would take place in June with the listing of its emerging market and UK asset management units, adding that all the resolutions pertaining to this had been passed.

Shareholders will receive one share in new UK wealth management company Quilter and three in Old Mutual Limited for every three Old Mutual shares currently held.

Old Mutual has been working towards a break-up since 2016 after deciding that regulatory changes had made the firm too complex to run, and has already sold out of its U.S. fund arm.

(Reporting by Justin George Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith)