LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Insurer Legal & General Group Plc (LGEN.L) plans to disclose how much more its chief executive earns than rank-and-file employees, becoming one of the first big U.K. companies to respond to growing concern about wage inequality with greater openness about pay, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.
Legal & General reportedly plans to publish the ratio in March when it updates investors on CEO Nigel Wilson's 2016 compensation in its annual report.
The company's move follows calls by the U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May for a crackdown on excessive executive pay, including proposals to give shareholders more say over compensation. Business and political leaders gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week are concerned that income inequality is fueling the populism behind the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president.
The U.K. government is weighing requiring companies to compare the highest-paid employee's remuneration with the average or median pay of a company's workers, following the adoption of a similar rule in the U.S. that went into effect this month.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX