The board of British mobile phone giant Vodafone stood by chief executive Arun Sarin this afternoon, despite a shareholder poll in which almost 10 per cent of votes were cast against him.
"There is absolutely no question of Arun Sarin stepping down from this company," Vodafone's outgoing chairman, Ian MacLaurin, told an annual shareholder meeting.
The world's biggest mobile phone company by sales said 33.3 billion shares were cast in support of Sarin's reappointment in a proxy vote, with around 3.7 billion against and 1.9 billion abstentions.
The vast majority of shares tend to be voted by proxy. Full results of the poll, including shareholders who voted at the meeting, are expected later today.
Mr Sarin has come under fire from some investors for not spelling out more clearly how Vodafone plans to cope with slowing growth in core European markets and new technologies.
Shareholders voting against Mr Sarin included Standard Life Investments, which owns around 1.7 per cent of Vodafone, and Morley Fund Management, owner of 2.1 per cent.
"We opposed the re-election of Arun Sarin and the remuneration report," Standard Life said in a statement. "This reflects the importance we attach to leadership at Vodafone and our concerns about Vodafone's remuneration policies, which in our opinion provide significant rewards for achieving unchallenging performance conditions."
Vodafone said its plans to set easier executive bonus targets had also been approved by shareholders, although again in the face of minority opposition.
About 31.3 billion proxy votes were cast in favour of Vodafone's remuneration proposals, with 3.3 billion against and 4.2 billion abstentions.
Disputes between companies and their large shareholders usually takes place behind closed doors, and so the open opposition to Mr Sarin is an embarrassment for Vodafone.
But the rebellion was smaller than at four other FTSE-100 companies that have seen high levels of votes cast against the election of a chief executive in the last 10 years - all of them in 2003.