LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group ( LDNXF )

shareholders will vote on Thursday on whether to

potentially double the pay of CEO David Schwimmer, after the

300-year old bourse campaigned to raise executive rewards to

strengthen UK capital markets.

LSEG's annual general meeting will vote on proposals to

allow Schwimmer's total yearly remuneration to rise to up to

13.063 million pounds ($16.14 million) from 6.25 million pounds.

Executive compensation at Britain's top companies has drawn

shareholder anger in recent years, with most critical of a

widening gap between average worker earnings and CEO pay.

But some UK fund managers are backing calls to give boards

more flexibility on paying top talent to staunch a brain-drain

to countries where pay is less of a hot topic.

Much of Schwimmer's package would remain performance based,

given that his annual basic pay would rise from 1 million pounds

at present, to 1.375 million pounds from January 2024.

The former Goldman Sachs banker earned 5.127 million pounds

in 2023, which LSEG says lags rivals such as CME, Nasdaq

, ICE and big data companies such as S&P Global ( SPGI )

and MSCI ( MSCI ).

LSEG told Reuters it has transformed itself into a highly

successful, complex and global organisation to deliver a strong

performance and significant shareholder value since its pay

policy was last reviewed in 2020.

"We have also aligned executive compensation with the median

of our global sector peer group and reinforced a

pay-for-performance philosophy," said LSEG, which also publishes

a first quarter trading update on Thursday.

LSEG has faced listings competition from EU-based financial

centres like Paris and Amsterdam since Brexit, adding to already

stiff rivalry from New York and piling pressure on regulators to

bolster London's global competitiveness as a financial centre.

Julia Hoggett, CEO of London Stock Exchange plc, chairs the

Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, which says executive

remuneration policy can help to attract, retain and reward top

talent, and is a key component of competitiveness.

Schwimmer's planned pay hike comes after Britain removed a

cap on banker bonuses inherited from the European Union and as

the country faces a cost of living crisis.

The $27 billion takeover of data and analytics company

Refinitiv in January 2021 transformed LSEG into a company where

data accounts for about 70% of its business, and it is better

able to compete with financial market data leader Bloomberg.

Thomson Reuters, which owns Reuters News, has a minority

shareholding in LSEG after the Refinitiv deal. LSEG also pays

Reuters for news.

($1 = 0.8095 pounds)