The boss of Wizz Air has been given an extra two years to unlock a £100million bonus – despite a big protest by investors.
Jozsef Varadi was granted the extension by investors in order to meet the performance conditions required for the award.
More than a quarter refused to back the proposal, which will see Varadi paid the bonus if he can lift the budget airline’s market value to £12billion by 2028.
Its current market cap is £2.4billion. Some 74 per cent of investors backed the proposal.
Extension: Wizz Air boss Jozsef Varadi (pictured) has been given an extra two years to unlock a £100m bonus
Wizz Air said its board believed Varadi was ‘central to delivering the airline’s recovery in the coming years’ and the changes were ‘in the best interests of the company, its shareholders and other stakeholders’.
But the proposal had encountered opposition from proxy advisers prior to the annual meeting in Switzerland.
Institutional Shareholder Services said the plan was ‘not fully in line with UK good practice’, while Pirc said the plans were ‘highly excessive’.
Wizz Air’s largest shareholder is US private equity firm Indigo Partners, which focuses on air transport and owns 24 per cent of the company.
Indigo’s founder William Franke has been chairman of Wizz Air for almost two decades.
The carrier had grown rapidly in the past five years, becoming one of the most significant firms in European aviation thanks to cheap fares made possible by an ultra-low-cost business model.
However, its shares have halved since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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