AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in the UK, is facing serious issues with regard to its executive salary after a profit cautioning. The drug maker is aiming to link its executives' pay to its revenue target of $45 billion within 2023. In May 2014, the company refused a takeover bid from its industry peer Pfizer after Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer pledged to increase AstraZeneca's sales by over 70% within 2023.
Soriot received £3.5 million as total compensation in 2014. AstraZeneca's shareholders now want the company to latch Soriot's salary to his revenue vow. In addition, there were warnings regarding the severe competition for Crestor, AstraZeneca's cholesterol drug.
It is said that nearly 20% of investors might vote against the company's salary report at the annual meeting that is scheduled for April. This is MONEY cited a spokesperson, who said, while few investors want executive pay to be linked directly with the revenue goal, majority differs from this opinion. The spokesperson continued that the compensation committee will carry on its discussion with representative bodies and major investors regarding this issue. The company's shares witnessed a fall of 12.57% since the previous 12-month period.
The company is optimistic regarding the prospect of durvalumab, a drug for bladder cancer. Recently, AstraZeneca purchased acalabrutinib, a blood cancer drug, for $4 billion from Acerta Pharma. The European Medicines Agency has granted orphan drug ranking to acalabrutinib, which is presently in its stage 3 trials for disease related to B-cell blood cancers and in initial phase trials for solid cancers.
The drug maker has been disposing its non-core assets in order to fund corporate operations with an effort to improve its revenues. During its fourth quarter earnings announcement, the company warned about its profit for the year 2016. AstraZeneca said that it expects its 2016 earnings per share and revenues to be "low to mid-single-digit percentage decline." This weak forecast might have fuelled shareholders' curiosity over the boss remuneration, as reported by BioPharma DIVE.
Meanwhile, thirty-one analysts have recommended to "hold" AstraZeneca's shares, while four have recommended "sell" rating on the stock. Recently, the company announced a dividend of $1.85, which will be paid on March 21, to shareholders of record on February 18. Moreover, Deutsche Bank fixed an objective price of $80.65 on AstraZeneca's shares, as reported by The HILLTOP NEWS.
BNP Paribas set a target price of $70.74 on shares of AstraZeneca while HSBC and Sanford C. Bernstein issued an objective price of $67.49 and $61.49 respectively on shares of AstraZeneca. HSBC gave the stock a "buy" rating, and Sanford C. Bernstein rated AstraZeneca with a "market perform" rating.
AstraZeneca is a pharmaceutical firm that explores, develops and market new drugs for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. While many stock researchers believe that it is impossible to accomplish the revenue target, many investors prefer not to link boss salary with sales goal.
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