British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline is preparing to back down on a controversial multi-million pound pay boost for its chief executive, Jean Pierre Garnier, reports say.

The UK's newspapers are united in reporting that chairman Sir Christopher Hogg has called an emergency board meeting for next week, at which either scrapping or massively curtailing Mr Garnier's wage bill is to be discussed.

Sir Christopher avoided specifics on the pay package, valued at anything from �11m ($17m) to �19m ($30m), saying only that after "helpful soundings" the board was "retiring to think about them", as the Sunday Times put it.

But nameless executives quoted in all the major papers were sure the deal was dead in the water.

Competition

Throughout the outcry, GSK has continued to insist that its policy on compensation,the usual euphemism for executive pay levels, is simply a matter of staying competitive in a global market.

And Mr Garnier himself - whose pay this year totalled about �6m - has made no secret of the fact that he believes he is worth the money.

He blamed the furore on different attitudes to executive pay on either side of the Atlantic.

"We have to have a compensation system that allows us to compete with the best and the brightest in the business," he told the Sunday Telegraph.

"If they want us to be competitive they realise they have to pay competitively vis-a-vis the other 15 big pharma companies."

Outrage

But investors quoted in the papers expressed disgust at what they saw as an inversion of values.

GSK's financial performance has faltered, with profits falling by 25% to �4.5bn in the most recent financial year.

At the same time, the company's share price has come under pressure, falling 30% to �12.48 over the last two and a half years.

Critics have also said that the company - formed by a merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKlineBeecham in early 2000 - has had a poor record in developing best-selling new drugs since the tie-up up was completed.

'Naive'

With that background, a massive pay boost would be ridiculous, one told the Observer.

The targets set for lucrative share options in the new package, the investor said, were "feeble".

And according to the Financial Mail on Sunday, comparisons with the US ignored the recent scandals tearing through corporate America.

"When so many US scandals have been linked to huge share option awards for top executives, it looks naive and insensitive to suggest Glaxo should follow suit for Garnier", one investor told the paper.