Sly Bailey to leave Trinity Mirror Sly Bailey, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror who was facing a shareholder revolt about her £1.7m pay package, unexpectedly handed in her notice to the board on Thursday. A statement from the company said that Ms Bailey, who has held the job for 10 years, would leave by the end of the year. Ms Bailey's departure followed a meeting of directors, who had held talks with investors earlier on Thursday. Aviva Global Investors, a top three shareholder with 11.9 per cent, had threatened to make public its opposition before the weekend. On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that investors were unhappy about her pay package and were planning a revolt at the company's annual meeting next week. One investor said the board had been involved in discussions for several weeks about concerns over her pay package, but talks broke down when it became clear that Ms Bailey was unhappy with any real changes proposed to her pay. One investor said "she helped to bring everything to a head and wrote her own exit." The next question is what exit terms she gets, he added. It is the second time since Easter that shareholder discontent over executive pay has forced out a chief executive before a key vote at a public investor meeting. David Brennan, chief executive of AstraZeneca, quit at the pharma company's AGM following pressure from leading shareholders. Shareholders are showing a new mood of assertiveness over pay and poor performance. Investors at UBS and Aviva on Thursday registered huge protest votes against executive remuneration plans. In a statement, Sir Ian Gibson, the Trinity chairman, thanked Ms Bailey for "her immense contribution and leadership over an extended period." She said in a statement: "Newspapers are a business like no other. Now I feel the time has come to hand over to someone else to take up the challenge and for me to seek new challenges and opportunities elsewhere. Investors in the publisher of the Daily Mirror and The People have repeatedly demanded a substantial cut in Ms Bailey's pay in the light of the group's market capitalisation, which has dwindled from £1.1bn when she joined in 2003 to £83.7m currently. Trinity has paid no dividend since 2008. The board has been in discussions with a number of leading institutions in recent weeks over limiting the size of Ms Bailey's potential bonus, ensuring it is reinvested in Trinity shares as well as aligning her long-term incentives more closely to the share price. However, the board's proposals have so far failed to appease angry shareholders. Trinity struck a last-minute bargain with trustees of its pension scheme in March to slash annual contributions in order to obtain a refinancing allowing it to pay off £168m to US creditors over the next three years. Trinity's pension liabilities total £1.7bn, dwarfing its market value. The publisher's pre-tax deficit in the year to January 1 ballooned from £161m to £230.1m. The company, which has been the target of allegations of phone hacking, has seen its shares fall 90 per cent over the past five years amid the economic downturn, migration of readers to the internet and the fragmentation of advertising spending.