PARIS (Reuters) - Shareholders of French drugmaker Sanofi (PA:SASY) on Tuesday rejected a proposal to pay a million euro bonus for 2019 to the group's former Chief executive Olivier Brandicourt.
Brandicourt had been widely critisised when he arrived at the company for pocketing a one-off welcome package of around 4 million euros (3.48 million pounds).
A presentation published on Sanofi's website stated Brandicourt was due to receive a fixed salary of 800,000 euros ($868,000) as well as a bonus of 1.16 million.
In a vote, more than 55% of shareholders rejected the proposed bonus.
Sanofi's chairman, Serge Weinberg, said in an online presentation the board would meet again to discuss the issue.
Brandicourt, a former executive with Germany's Bayer (DE:BAYGn), joined Sanofi as CEO in 2015. He left the company at the end of August last year and was replaced by Paul Hudson, who joined from Switzerland's Novartis (S:NOVN).
Under his tenure, Brandicourt reshaped Sanofi in a series of reorganisations and deals, including swapping the French group's animal health unit with the consumer healthcare operations of Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim in a $20 billion transaction.
Launches, such as eczema treatment Dupixent, cost-cutting measures and new priorities in research and development also helped the company return to profit, but Brandicourt and his teams failed to land two strategic acquisitions.