MANAGEMENT of SacOil Holdings will meet major shareholders in the near future to identify their concerns after a 60% vote against the executive remuneration policy at Monday’s annual general meeting.
The 60% "against" vote on SacOil’s remuneration is unusually high, although several local institutions regularly raise concerns about remuneration at companies’ AGMss.
In recent years, as company profits have weakened, shareholders around the globe have become increasingly discontented with perceived excessive payments to executives.
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Sacoil’s biggest shareholders at the date of the annual report were the Government Employees Pension Fund with 42.14%, Westglamry (19.6%) and Newdel Holdings (7.42%).
Finance director Damain Matroos on Tuesday said SacOil’s investors had not raised concerns on pay before so it was impossible to say now what their objections were. This was a nonbinding advisory resolution, so the majority vote against it did not affect the payments to executive management.
SacOil CEO Thabo Kgogo earned a total package of R4.3m in the year to February, of which R3.7m was salary, reflecting a 37% increase on his 2015 salary. Matroos’s total remuneration in 2016 was R3.3m, up from R1.1m in 2015, as he was appointed only on February 1 2015.
Executive director Bradley Cerff, who recently resigned, earned R3m in 2016, with a 76% increase in the basic salary component. The average salary increase for other management and staff based in SA was 6%.
SacOil turned around to a profit of R39.6m in 2016 from a loss of R277m in 2015, largely because of the weakening of the rand — which boosted the value of foreign assets — as well as the reorganisation of SacOil’s interest in Block III in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a one-off R420.2m write-down in 2015.
In a presentation posted on SacOil’s website, it said it had met all its stated objectives in the past year. It was screening the market for new opportunities to further its objectives of creating value in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors across Africa. It said it had a strong balance sheet in comparison with its peer group, with R107m in cash and no debt.
SacOil’s shares shed 1c to 17c on the JSE on Tuesday.
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