Souter keeps his £320,000 bonus

BUS and rail group Stagecoach today survived a vote over its award of a £322,000 bonus to co-founder and chief executive Brian Souter.

Most of the Perth-based group's shareholders shunned a call by corporate governance group the Pensions Investment Research Consultants (PIRC) to reject the company's remuneration report.

Around 6% of investors voted against the report with another 8% abstaining.

PIRC claimed the group's performance targets were insufficiently challenging to justify the levels of reward available.

But Stagecoach said the awards highlighted the strong performance of the group's share price over the last year and management's efforts to turn around the company's fortunes.

Stagecoach is disposing of parts of troubled US arm Coach USA and has secured a three year extension of its South West Trains franchise.

A company spokesman said: 'They are not rewards for failure.'