Aviva chief quits after pay package provokes fury

Andrew Moss will leave the firm with immediate effect after more than half of shareholder votes failed to back the firm's remuneration report at its annual meeting last week.

Around 59 per cent of votes failed to back Aviva's pay report, in one of the biggest ever shareholder protest votes, while 10 per cent went against or withheld their votes on the re-election of Mr Moss.

He offered to waive a pay rise of almost 5 per cent, which would have taken his annual salary over the £1 million mark, in a bid to appease investor anger at the firm. The company has been hit by a 30 per cent drop in the share price in the last year. The report showed that Mr Moss was also awarded a £1.2m bonus.

The Aviva boss becomes the third chief executive to resign in recent days after AstraZeneca's David Brennan and Trinity Mirror's Sly Bailey, also stepped down amid increasing shareholder discontent.

Unite national officer David Fleming hailed Mr Moss's departure as "a welcome and important step on the road to curbing greed in the boardrooms of the financial services sector.

"Under the disastrous leadership of Andrew Moss, Aviva has scaled back its operations resulting in job losses, including the decimation of its Irish workforce and pay suppression for the staff.

"Our members have helped build one of Europe's top insurance companies and staff deserve better leadership from those at the top, who have continued to accept growing pay packets while taking the firm backwards."

paddym@peoples-press.com