The Bobby Kotick Salary Drama Rages On As Vote is Delayed Amid Investment Group Criticism Over High Payments
Activision Blizzard is delaying an important vote on executive pay, following criticism of excessive executive salaries, particularly CEO Bobby Kotick’s $154.6 million compensation.
Company shareholders are now scheduled to vote on June 21 on the “say-on-pay” executive compensation plan. Most other items on the company’s agenda were approved earlier today.
The delay is being called the company’s “desperate attempt” to avoid losing the vote and therefore the larger executive salary compensations by the the labor-backed investment firm CtW Investment Group, Bloomberg reports.
Activision is stating that “misleading” information may cause shareholders to vote against its compensation plan, referring to CtW’s previous lobbying efforts against Activision’s executive compensation packages.
CtW lobbied against Activision in 2020 and 2021. The criticism of Activision seems to be growing, with say-on-pay receiving only 57% support from shareholders in 2020, down from previous years. CtW’s work is effectively aimed at Kotick’s compensation, which has been criticized by some for being excessively high. Activision has responded by increasing its efforts to court shareholders’ votes, Bloomberg says.
