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(Adds shareholder and executive comments)
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - Martin Sorrell, boss of theworld's biggest advertising group WPP, saw off anothershareholder revolt over his 43 million pound ($65.7 million) paypackage at the company's annual meeting on Tuesday.
Sorrell, who built up WPP from nothing in 1986 into one ofBritain's best known companies with 179,000 employees in 111countries, has clashed repeatedly with investors over his pay inthe past few years.
But the number of investors objecting has decreased overtime. On Tuesday, 22 percent of investors at the meeting refusedto back his pay deal, down from nearly 60 percent ofshareholders who rejected his pay in 2012 and 30 percent lastyear.
Investors have been split on the issue. Some say that whilethe figure is excessive, they accept that Sorrell has made WPP aglobal leader.
"There is no doubt that Martin Sorrell is a successful CEOwho has created value for shareholders, but sometimes investorsneed to ask themselves 'when is enough, enough?'" AshleyHamilton Claxton, corporate governance manager at shareholderRoyal London Asset Management, said.
"In our view, 43 million pounds is more than enough."
WPP, which has GroupM and Ogilvy & Mather and JWT in itsstable, has defended Sorrell's pay award for 2014, saying morethan 90 percent was linked to the company's performance.
Addressing the issue of performance head on at the annualmeeting in central London, Sorrell, whose package made him thehighest paid FTSE 100 boss last year, said any shareholder whoinvested 1,000 pounds 20 years ago would now have a holdingworth 15,831 pounds today.
The same investment in a basket of its peers Omnicom, Publicis, Havas and IPG,would be nearer 8,590 pounds, he said.
One private investor told the meeting that Sorrell was"worth every penny" and any who objected could simply sell theirshares, a view that won applause from other shareholders.
But another investor, Albert Goodey, said after the meetingthe payment was "objectionable."
"I understand he's built the company, but it sets a terribleexample in the marketplace," he said. "You have to pay goodsalaries to get the right people, but executive pay has got outof bounds."
Several shareholder advisory groups such as PIRC (Pensions &Investment Research Consultants) had advised shareholders tovote against the remuneration package.
When Sorrell's 43 million pound pay was initially disclosedin the company's annual report in April, High Pay Centre deputydirector Luke Hildyard said at the time that although Sorrellwas a successful CEO, he was paid over 1,000 times as much ashis average employee.
WPP Chairman Philip Lader said Sorrell's pay was "certainlya large quantum", but it was tied to a long-term plan that wassupported by 83 percent of shareholders five years ago.
The amount was the equivalent to one third of one percent ofthe increase in value to shareholders over this period, he said.
Sorrell's dominance at WPP, termed "Sorrellcentricity" byLader, was an issue in terms of succession planning for StandardLife Investments, which manages some 22 million shares in thecompany.
"For now, we support the board's position that Sir Martin isthe right person to lead the company," Standard LifeInvestments' head of governance Guy Jubb said. "But we believethe board, including Sir Martin, has a responsibility todemonstrate with conviction how it is managing both the art andthe science that is needed to confront the 'successionelephant.'"
Lader, who was presiding over his final annual meeting, saidthe board had discussed the issue at length, but naming a listof candidates could damage co-operation between the group'scompanies, and also the capabilities required to do the jobcould be different when the handover comes.
Sorrell, 70, shows no signs of slowing down, and he is threeyears younger than his rival at Publicis, Maurice Levy, whoplans to stay in his job until May 2017.
($1 = 0.6542 pounds) (Editing by Kate Holton and Jane Merriman)
