About one-third of voting Citigroup Inc. shareholders cast their ballots against the bank's pay plan for top executives Tuesday, a rebuke for a bank that has been focusing on improving relationships with investors.

About 64% of shareholders voted in favor of the company's executive pay packages, the bank said at its annual meeting Tuesday. That was down from last year's vote, when about 84% voted in favor.

Two influential firms that advise big shareholders on how to vote, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co., had recommended that shareholders vote no in the "say on pay" proposal, saying the bank needs to more closely link the executives' pay to the bank's performance. Citigroup's stock price is down about 9% this year, compared with a 4% drop in the KBW Nasdaq bank stock index.

Citigroup has defended its pay packages, including 2015 compensation of $16.5 million for Chief Executive Michael Corbat. At Tuesday's meeting, Chairman Michael O'Neill noted other accomplishments of the past year, including passing the stress test and boosting earnings to their biggest in nearly a decade. He also noted that Mr. Corbat's pay is lower than that of most of his peers at other banks.

But Mr. O'Neill also acknowledged that the share price was "a fly in the ointment" and not where the bank wanted it to be, and said the board would be considering other ways to tweak the pay packages for next year.

Last year, shareholders at S&P 500 companies approved so-called "say on pay" measures with an average support of 93%, according to ISS Voting Analytics.

Write to Christina Rexrode at christina.rexrode@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 26, 2016 11:25 ET (15:25 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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