Retail news round-up on May 18, 2015: HMV weeks from digital comeback, Ocado and Co-op face shareholder backlash over pay and ex-Lush directors offload shares.

HMV to make digital comeback in Britain 

Music chain HMV is to re-launch its UK website within weeks in its latest rehabilitation step, The Telegraph reports. This will give music fans their first chance to buy CDs and games from the retailer online since it collapsed two years ago.

Ocado feels investor wrath over directors’ pay

Online grocer Ocado is the latest to suffer a shareholder rebellion over directors’ pay. The results of the retailer’s annual general meeting showed that almost 20% of shareholders voted against its directors’ remuneration report.

Co-op Group bosses endure brusing AGM over pay plans

The Co-operative Group’s chairman Allan Leighton endured a bruising annual meeting this weekend after more than a third of the mutual’s members failed to back its reformed pay plans. Almost 40,000 members voted against or withheld votes on the group’s remuneration report at the meeting, following a £2.5m award for its boss Richard Pennycook.

Members described Pennycook’s pay as excessive and challenged him to work on a £1m salary, although Leighton claimed that the former Morrisons director was worth every penny, The Telegraph reports.

Ex-Lush directors mull offloading stakes

Cosmetics retailer Lush’s former directors Liz Bennett and Andrew Gerrie are selling their stakes that will see the company’s founder Mark Constantine get further control. The duo is now believed to be preparing to offload their shares. Lush director Karl Bygrave told The Sunday Telegraph that ‘two shareholders have given notice to the company that they wish to dispose of their minority shares’.

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