NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. — Investors are urging Mylan Pharmaceutical shareholders to vote against the re-election of company chairman Robert Coury and five other directors due to high pay, according the the Wall Street Journal.
The company disclosed to the WSJ that Coury received nearly $100 million in 2016, one of the largest pay packages this past year for any public company.
Joann Lublin, a WSJ reporter, said four major pension funds have launched a campaign to get shareholders to oppose Coury’s re-election at its June 22 annual meeting. Coury previously served as Mylan’s chief executive officer.
“They feel that the company is paying their former CEO way too much,” Lublin said on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
Coury stepped down as CEO in 2012 to become Mylan’s executive chairman. He now serves as a non employee of the company, Lublin said.
“He goes from being a full time role of executive chairman to being what’s called non-employee chairman which is basically — he’s not an employee anymore of the company and it’s not really a paying job. It’s a role,” she explained.
Coury was “paid quite extravagantly” even after he switched roles in 2012, according to a letter signed by officials with the New York City and New York State pension funds plus the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and PGGM, a Dutch pension fund. The letter was submitted to Mylan officials.
Investors are also taking taking aim at the six employees after Mylan triggered a public uproar last year for jacking up the price of its EpiPen, a lifesaving allergy medicine.
“I think it makes it a stickier situation,” Lublin said, even after the company launched a generic, less expensive version of the EpiPen.
Currently, Lublin said investors own about 4.3 million shares of Mylan.
She said she believes boards, like Mylan’s, tend to reward long serving leaders higher pay because they fear no one else can run the company any better.
“I think boards can get tone deaf and, in this case, shareholders in this situation are hoping other investors will join them in, at least, sending a strong message of discontent over the executive pay practice,” Lublin said.
Mylan has a large production facility in Morgantown. The company’s CEO is Heather Bresch who is the daughter of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin. Bresch was in the middle of the EpiPen controversy. She was called to Capitol Hill to testify before a congressional committee.