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(Corrects par 3 to say holders of 55 percent of shares backedpay plan last year)
* Shareholders owning 60 pct of stock reject compensationreport
* Influential shareholder groups had recommended 'no' vote
* Swiss citizens have voted strict controls on executive pay
BASEL, April 18 (Reuters) - Actelion shareholdersrejected a $5.6 million pay award for the biotechnologycompany's chief executive Jean-Paul Clozel on Thursday, makingit the second Swiss company in as many weeks to have its payplans voted down by investors.
Public anger over executive salaries has run high inSwitzerland since the country had to rescue UBS fromrisky investments blamed on a lavish bonus culture. Swisscitizens voted in a referendum in March to introduce some of theworld's strictest controls on executive pay.
Influential shareholder groups Ethos, Actares and ISS hadurged shareholders to reject Actelion's compensation package,which the company reworked after shareholders owning 55 percentof the company's stock backed it last year, a proportion thecompany wanted to improve.
Clozel's pay award for 2012 is 15 percent higher than theprevious year's, owing to a deferred profit-sharing award thatwas twice as high as in 2011.
In Thursday's vote owners of 60 percent of the stockrejected the package. Their vote is still only advisory, as theSwiss government has not yet decided when the new legislationcomes into force, so Clozel will receive the proposed paydespite protests.
Actelion also said it would replace its profit sharing planin 2013 with one putting more emphasis on achieving yearly goalsand linked to share price performance.
Actelion chairman Jean-Pierre Garnier said the companybelieved it had addressed most issues raised by shareholders tobetter align the needs of the company and its owners, but addedthat it would do more work on the plans.
"We did have some elements which were not based on futureperformance, but we have changed all this," Garnier told Reutersfollowing the meeting in Basel. "We are going to fine tune iteven further and get this behind us."
Garnier is no stranger to acrimonious debates over executivepay awards: in 2002, when he was chief executive of British drugcompany GlaxoSmithkline, the company shelved plans todouble his pay following a shareholder outcry.
Actelion's biggest shareholders beside its managers, whohold a 10.5 percent stake in the firm, are Orbis InvestmentManagement Limited and investor Rudolf Maag.
Last week, Julius Baer shareholders also rejectedthe pay plans of the Swiss private bank.
At Novartis, a $78 million pay-off for outgoingchairman Daniel Vasella stirred widespread outrage, which forcedthe drugmaker to scrap the payment. ($1 = 0.9312 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Paul Arnold; Writing by Caroline Copley andMartin de Sa'Pinto; Editing by Sophie Walker)
