AMP chairman David Murray scoffs at the idea of overpaid executives

David Murray has no truck with the view that Australian executives are overpaid. Nor does Murray, who was parachuted into embattled financial services group AMP earlier this year to steer it out of the hurricane triggered by the banking royal commission, have any time for so-called balanced scorecards, which take into account a raft of performance measures to determine an executive’s pay.

Remuneration is a perennial hot potato for directors and sometime source of frustration for investors. Last month Telstra chairman John Mullen said executive pay was the "single most difficult issue" for the directors of large companies. Telstra and Tabcorp were among the companies that received strikes against their remuneration report in this latest round of annual meetings, potentially paving the way for investors to force a spill of their boards.