Big Yellow Q1 revenues up as board set to face row over executive pay

Self storage company Big Yellow Group on Thursday reported a 7.6% increase in like-for-like revenue for the first quarter as its board braced for criticism of its executive pay increases at its annual meeting.

In a trading statement, the company said the rise was driven by growth in occupancy and pricing.

Like-for-like occupancy rose to 84.2% from 81.6% year on year and average net rent per sq ft increased by 3.2%

The company faces a stormy meeting on Thursday after an institutional shareholder criticised it for awarding its executives pay increases of up to 40%.

Ashley Hamilton Claxton, head of responsible investment at Royal London Asset Management, said it had “longstanding concerns about pay at Big Yellow Group” and would be voting against the remuneration report, remuneration policy and the chairman of the remuneration committee, the Times reported.

“We are concerned by large salary increases of up to 40 per cent for the executive directors over the next three years,” she said. “This will have the effect of ratcheting up performance-based pay that’s set as a multiple of salary.

“While we welcome the introduction of a holding period for long-term awards under the firm’s new remuneration policy, we are concerned that variable pay will be more heavily geared towards short-term performance under the new plan.”

In its annual report the group has proposed a remuneration policy where over the next three years the salaries of top executives will rise on a phased basis, the newspaper report stated.

This means that the salary of chief executive James Gibson will leap to £0.44m from £0.30m.