Proxy advisers have backed Whitehaven Coal’s new approach to executive pay as London hedge fund Bell Rock made remuneration the new focus of its activist campaign to stop Whitehaven acquiring BHP’s coal mines.

Bell Rock has this year lobbied Whitehaven to spend its $2.65 billion cash pile on shareholder returns rather than coal mine acquisitions and will escalate that campaign over the next two weeks with newspaper advertisements and direct mailouts to shareholders ahead of Whitehaven’s annual shareholder meeting on October 26.