Shareholders at Old Mutual’s annual general meeting have withheld the support needed to pass the insurer’s remuneration policy, in a rebuke centred on a R300 million long-term incentive awarded to chief executive Jurie Strydom. Two resolutions covering the group’s pay policy and its implementation report drew majority backing but fell short of the 75% threshold required under the nonbinding advisory framework, with support at 68.39% and 70.72% respectively. Old Mutual said it would now hold further engagement with dissenting investors.
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The vote lands against a backdrop of persistent share price weakness that the incentive scheme was designed to fix. Old Mutual is valued at roughly R59 billion on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, against R188 billion for rival Sanlam, despite both firms tracing their roots to the same era of South African life assurance. Over the past five years Old Mutual’s share price has risen only 18%, compared with a 50% gain for Sanlam, which has used the period to expand aggressively through acquisitions across the continent and into India.
To close that gap, the Old Mutual board built Strydom’s package around share appreciation rights rather than a straightforward bonus. He was granted rights worth R300 million at a strike price of R10.87, equivalent to 27.6 million share appreciation rights, with the payout capped once the share price reaches double the strike price. In practice, Strydom only benefits if the stock climbs to R21.74 or higher by 12 May 2030; on Tuesday it was trading at R13.91, roughly 36% below the level needed to trigger a full payout.
| Metric | Old Mutual | Sanlam |
|---|---|---|
| JSE market value | R59bn | R188bn |
| Five-year share price change | +18% | +50% |
| Share price (16 July 2026) | R13.91 | — |
| CEO incentive trigger price | R21.74 by May 2030 | — |
The scale of dissent places Old Mutual alongside a broader pattern of shareholder pushback on executive pay this year. In June, Absa Group shareholders voted 43.37% against that bank’s remuneration implementation report, driven largely by a R148 million package for incoming chief executive Kenny Fihla, most of it a buyout award linked to equity forfeited when he left Standard Bank. Both votes have unfolded as South Africa’s remuneration governance regime undergoes a structural shift: amendments to the Companies Act that came into force on 22 May 2026 convert say-on-pay from a nonbinding listings requirement into a statutory ordinary resolution, with a two-strike mechanism that can force remuneration committee members to stand for re-election, and eventual disqualification, if investor concerns are not addressed.
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Old Mutual’s board has defended the structure of Strydom’s award as tightly geared to shareholder outcomes, noting in its annual report that the scheme uses forfeitable and dividend shares to create a leveraged result that only pays out on sustained share price growth, a deliberate response to the 4.3% share price decline recorded in the five years before Strydom’s appointment in mid-2025. The retention period runs seven to nine years.
Aheesh Singh, chief investment officer at MP9 Asset Management, said the outcome reflects a market grappling more broadly with the alignment of executive incentives to shareholder returns, rather than outright opposition to strong pay packages, and comes as debate over executive compensation intensifies in a country with deep income inequality. Old Mutual has not disclosed a timeline for its engagement process with dissenting shareholders.