According to the Smart Finance app, Salesforce shareholders voted against the compensation plan for senior executives at the recent annual shareholders meeting, reflecting concerns over CEO Marc Benioff's equity rewards. Regulator documents indicate that despite the board's backing of the plan, both shareholder advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services recommended that investors vote against it. In the end, the votes against exceeded the votes in favor with 404.8 million to 339.3 million.

It is understood that Benioff's total compensation in fiscal year 2024 reached $39.6 million, an increase from $29.9 million in the previous fiscal year. This growth is mainly due to additional stock and option rewards and non-stock incentive plan compensation, while his annual salary remains unchanged at $1.55 million. In January of this year, the board's compensation committee also awarded Benioff a long-term equity reward worth $20 million in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the company's transformation and financial performance.

However, Glass Lewis pointed out in its recommendation that shareholders may be cautious about the large amount of discretionary stock bonuses awarded to Benioff in January, believing that there is insufficient justification for these rewards. Considering that Benioff is already one of the company's largest shareholders, holding more than 2% of the shares worth nearly $6 billion, Glass Lewis believes that additional performance-based restricted stock units and stock options are unnecessary because his interests are already highly aligned with those of shareholders.

It is worth noting that the vote at the annual shareholders meeting is not legally binding. Nevertheless, in its proxy statement, the Salesforce board stated that the compensation committee will take into account the views of shareholders and consider the outcome of this vote when making executive compensation decisions in the future.

It is reported that Salesforce's stock price rose 67% in fiscal year 2024, its best performance since 2011, but so far this year, Salesforce's stock price has fallen 2.6%. In addition, net income for this fiscal year surged from $208 million to $4.1 billion, with revenue also growing 11% from $31.4 billion to $34.9 billion. However, under pressure from activist investors, the company announced plans to lay off 10% of its workforce in January 2023 and began distributing dividends to shareholders in February.

Salesforce declined to comment on the results of the shareholders meeting.

Although shareholders voted against the plan, the board stated in its proxy statement that the compensation committee will take into account the views of shareholders and consider the outcome of this vote when making executive compensation decisions in the future. Therefore, although the vote at the shareholders meeting reflects the wishes of shareholders, it will not directly lead to changes in the compensation plan, but the board will adjust future compensation decisions based on the voting results and shareholders' views.