(Newser)
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Do you think Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit deserves to make $15 million? Neither do Citi's shareholders, who yesterday voted against a proposed pay package for the company's top five executives that would have given Pandit that payday, the New York Times reports. It's one of the few times shareholders have voted against a compensation package since the Dodd-Frank Act instituted so-called "say on pay" votes, and the first at a financial giant.
"CEOs deserve good pay, but there's good pay and there's obscene pay," says a principal at a firm that owns 5 million Citi shares. Roughly 55% of shareholders voted against the package. The vote is nonbinding, but outgoing chairman Richard Parsons says the board will take it under serious consideration. Citigroup has long been criticized for its executive pay; it has ranked among the top of the big banks in terms of compensation, despite being dead last in stock performance.
