Fund managers are warning company bosses against "topping up" their pay packets to make up for any bonuses lost due to plunging profits and share prices during the Covid-19 crisis — as executives in the hardest-hit sectors begin to take pay cuts.

BMO Global Asset Management, the Canadian-owned fund manager, is the latest to caution companies that bonuses will be carefully scrutinised this year. “Many companies will miss short-term and long-term incentive plan targets... shareholders will not generally look favourably on executives receiving generous bonuses following a year where shareholders have lost out, even though the impacts of the virus are outside of companies’ control,” the firm said in a statement on its website.