The owners of companies have become increasingly concerned about what they see as excessive pay increases for directors, that are not justified by the performance of companies - and there has been a rise in the number of protest votes against remuneration practices at companies' annual meetings.
That said, the 60% vote against the remuneration report of WPP, the media giant, is significant.
There was more evidence of growing shareholder activism at European companies when investors representing 59% of the shares in Royal Dutch Shell voted against its remuneration report.
But the main argument against the 32% remuneration rise for the bosses is that it seems totally disconnected from what they've delivered to the owners, to shareholders, over the long term or the short term.
More than 30% of shareholders voted against the company's remuneration report, which included a large "golden hello" to chief executive Michael Clarke.
Last week, 54% of Aviva shareholders voted against the company's annual remuneration report, which covers its pay and bonus packages.
At the annual meeting of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, on May 2nd the legendary investor railed against a system that lets chief executives choose the members of remuneration committees.
According to research by the proxy voting service Manifest, if abstentions are counted as votes against, then some 67 FTSE100 companies would have lost the remuneration vote on a 75% threshold since the advisory vote was introduced a decade ago.
In April, 32% of shareholders voted against the bank's pay plans, while 24% failed to back remuneration committee head Alison Carnworth.
And the figures indicate that a sizeable minority of these British investors with longer-term horizons may also have voted against the re-election of Alison Carnwarth as a director and chair of the remuneration committee.
BBC: Do investors have the power to curb excessive bosses' pay?
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