Standard Life Aberdeen suffered the fourth-worst rebuke on executive pay of any UK company this year from its shareholders, with 42% rebelling over a golden hello for Stephanie Bruce, the asset manager’s new chief financial officer.

At the company’s annual general meeting in Edinburgh on May 14, only 58% of shareholders voted to approve directors’ pay packets for 2018, a result that shareholder advisers and the company itself put down to the sum offered to Bruce.