{"id":581752,"date":"2026-08-27T08:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/581752\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T08:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:20:09","slug":"xero-shareholders-reject-executive-pay-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/581752\/","title":{"rendered":"Xero shareholders reject executive pay report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero&#8217;s shareholders have delivered a stinging rebuke to its board, with more than 70 percent voting against the remuneration report at its annual shareholder meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The remuneration report is the section of a company&#8217;s annual report explaining how its directors and senior executives were paid, and why, including salaries, bonuses and share-based incentives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">It follows controversy over a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/business\/1102842\/xero-s-ceo-gets-pay-rise-after-review-finds-pay-below-other-technology-company-leaders\" class=\"underline-brand-hover visited:text-foreground-secondary hover:visited:text-foreground-primary\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">revised remuneration structure<\/a> for chief executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, lifting her target total remuneration from US$15.2 million to US$18.5 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero&#8217;s share price has roughly halved over the past year, despite a strong operational performance, while Singh Cassidy recently sold the remainder of her direct shareholding, worth about US$1.9 million, which the company said was to meet personal tax obligations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero said she continued to hold about 586,000 restricted stock units already granted under time-based and performance-based schemes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The resolution itself is only advisory and non-binding and will not stop Singh Cassidy&#8217;s revised pay structure coming into effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero said the major proxy advisers had recommended shareholders vote against the remuneration report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">It said concerns included incentive payments not being reduced to reflect the shareholder experience, too much of the chief executive&#8217;s equity being tied to continued length of service, rather than performance, and Singh Cassidy&#8217;s recent share sale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero People and Remuneration Committee chair Susan Peterson said poor share price performance had &#8220;materially influenced&#8221; the vote outcome, and the board respected and understood &#8220;the strength of this feedback&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Xero said the voting outcome and comments from proxy advisers and investors would be considered when setting future remuneration strategy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Peterson told shareholders the board understood frustration over the company&#8217;s share price performance, but said Xero needed to pay competitively to attract and retain global technology executives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">She said the board would introduce a minimum shareholding requirement for the chief executive, requiring a stake worth five times annual base salary within three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The shareholder backlash comes as Xero also faces criticism from some customers after it hiked its prices, and over its handling of major platform outages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xero&#8217;s shareholders have delivered a stinging rebuke to its board, with more than 70 percent voting against the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-581752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}