Carrefour investors block share options Shareholders at Carrefour vented their anger at the French retailer's underperformance by blocking the allocation of new share options to directors at an annual meeting in Paris. The protest overshadowed a pitch to shareholders by Carrefour's incoming chief executive and chairman outlining a strategy likely to result in the retailer selling some of its international operations. Georges Plassat, the retailer's new chairman and chief executive, said it would take at least three years to turn the company round. "I cannot commit to short-term promises," Mr Plassat, who joined Carrefour in April, told the meeting. It will take three years to relaunch the engine. Mr Plassat said and that he felt no "threat" and no constraint from the biggest shareholder - Blue Capital - which owns 16 per cent of the shares. Blue Capital is a joint venture vehicle of Groupe Arnault, the investment arm of luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault and Colony Capital, the US private equity group Mr Plassat, a veteran retailer, is Carrefour's third chief executive since Blue Capital made its initial investment - now heavily lossmaking, at least on paper - five years ago. Four weeks ago he replaced Lars Olofsson, whose name drew jeers from the hundreds of shareholders gathered at the large meeting in a cavernous vault under the Louvre museum. Mr Olofsson, who presided over a share price fall of 43 per cent in his three years at the helm, decided to quit a month earlier than planned, depriving shareholders of the opportunity to vent anger at him directly at the annual general meeting. Nevertheless, an ordinary resolution endorsing his much-criticised €1.5m non-competition pay-off and an annual pension estimated by shareholder groups at around €500,000, was only narrowly passed with 51.3 per cent of votes of cast, while 48.1 per cent opposed. Two extraordinary resolutions, concerning the allocation of free shares and stock options, to management and employees were blocked after narrowly failing to obtain a two-thirds majority. Such shareholder revolts - especially in the private sector - are unusual in France but public anger over executive pay packages at a time of rising unemployment has mounted. Shareholders of Air France-KLM and Safran recently protested against big pay-offs for chief executives at the partly state-owned groups. The country's new Socialist government has weighed in, saying last week it would cap the pay of the heads of state-controlled companies at €450,000 a year. Mr Plassat said Carrefour was too big and complicated. He was "convinced" that its difficulties stemmed from having entered too many international markets with insufficient financial backing. After selling Carrefour's operations in Greece last week to its domestic joint venture partner, which will become a Carrefour franchisee, he signalled a similar course for some other countries. However, he said there was no question of quitting Brazil and last week he reinforced the group's position in Argentina with the acquisition of a small chain of supermarkets. But he was ambiguous over China. He said he would have to cut fixed costs, such as the group's marketing and advertising budget of €500m in France. The hypermarket format pioneered by Carrefour "will survive" but needed readjustment, he said.