Ellison's pay hike sparks shareholder angst

Some Oracle Corp. shareholders are angry at Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison's 38 percent pay increase and are pressing for a say on compensation in the software company, according to Bloomberg News.

Ellison, already the fourth-richest man in the U.S. and the second best-paid chief executive officer of a U.S. public company, is in line for a $72 million pay package already approved by a committee of board members. The package is 12 times larger than the median pay of CEOs in the technology industry.

Oracle recorded a 29 percent profit growth last fiscal year.

The proposal for a say on compensation at Oracle, the second-largest software maker, is led by the religious group Marianist Province of the U.S. It has also won support from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, Bloomberg reported.

"Ellison's compensation was already sky high and didn't need to go higher," Scott Adams, the AFSCME union's pension and investment analyst in Oakland, Calif., told the business news service. "The company is hiding behind the fact that they did well in the past year."

The so-called "say on pay" plan goes before investors at an Oct. 10 meeting. It is expected to garner at least a third of the votes, well short of the majority needed to pass, Adams said.

Ellison's worth was estimated at $26 billion in September by Forbes magazine, putting him behind U.S. billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Sheldon Adelson, Bloomberg reported.