Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment’s move to the New York Stock Exchange looks like an excuse to treble executives’ pay, a shareholder told the company at its annual general meeting on Friday.
The betting giant, owner of Paddy Power, Betfair and US business FanDuel, held its key shareholder meeting at its Clonskeagh, Dublin, headquarters on Friday, where chief executive Peter Jackson gave a brief presentation online from New York.
Shortly before the meeting closed, shareholder Colm Whooley told chairman John Bryant he was “disappointed” the company had given no presentation on its results, despite a tough year for investors.
Flutter’s share price came under pressure from midway through last year as so-called “prediction markets” began eating into its business.
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The group’s move to New York two years ago “seems like an excuse to treble the remuneration of the executives”, Whooley said.
“Salaries of $20 million [€17 million] do not make any sense to me,” he said. The investor added that he did not accept the justification that this level of reward motivated executives.
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Flutter paid Jackson $19.7 million last year. Close to $16 million of the total was in shares.
The group paid him $22 million in 2024, the bulk of which was also company stock.
Bryant responded that Jackson’s pay was appropriate given the size, scale and magnitude of the company, and was not out of line with similar-sized businesses listed in the US.
[ Flutter CEO will not travel for company’s AGMOpens in new window ]
He pointed out that the chief executive’s pay mostly consisted of company shares, and so the value of his salary was not necessarily the same as the figure published in annual reports and stock-market filings.
Prediction markets allow clients to bet on one or other of two outcomes. A series of big bets on Donald Trump winning the 2024 US presidential election thrust them into the spotlight, boosting their popularity.
They offer bets on everything from whether it will rain in the next hour to the second coming (which is 24/1), but customers mostly use them to wager on football and other sports.
Flutter’s US business FanDuel has launched its own prediction market. The group’s shares were trading at about $98 in New York at 5pm Irish time on Friday.
