Friday 03 June 2016 1:43 pm

Supermarket sweep: Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe on for 86 per cent payrise

J Sainsbury has proved that it is undeterred by the general shareholder sentiment this AGM season, awarding chief executive Mike Coupe an 86 per cent payrise.

As revealed in the supermarket's annual report, which was published today, Coupe will receive £2.8m for his efforts for the 2015-16 financial year, up from £1.5m the year before.

However, the paypacket for Coupe, who took up his role at J Sainsbury in July 2014, looks like pocket money compared with those received by his predecessor Justin King. For example, King took home £3.9m for the 2013-14 financial year and £4.4m the year before that.

Shareholders can tell the company what they think of Coupe's pay deal at Sainbury's AGM on 6 July.

Among the factors that might influence investors' decision to say yay or nay is the most recent update from Kantar Worldpanel, which found that Sainsbury's market share had dropped off 0.3 per cent year-on-year, as the Big Four struggled to fend off competition from both the discounters and the luxury end of the market.

Shareholders may be feeling more positive about the supermarket's most recent set of annual results, which beat forecasts. However, profits and sales still dipped and even Coupe had to confess that it was likely to be a tough road ahead for the retailer.

Meanwhile, this season has seen shareholders keen to shoot down any executive pay awards that they deem to be out of line. BP chief executive Bob Dudley saw his pay, worth $19.6m (£13.8m) be given the thumbs down by investors in April, while Weir Group was told to take its plans for calculating remuneration for future years back to the drawing board.

At time of writing, shares in the supermarket were trading down 2.1 per cent at 251.5p. The company's performance on the London Stock Exchange has remained reasonably flat throughout the year, closing at 249.8p this time last year.