Hellaby Holdings has pulled a resolution from its annual meeting giving chief executive John Williamson one million share options.
Chairman Bill Falconer said some shareholders had expressed concern about option schemes since the notice of meeting.
"That in itself was not the reason for withdrawing it," Falconer said."We have a commitment to incentivise and that was part of our agreement with him when he was engaged.
"What we're looking for is something which will just provide a little more certainty in the link between the performance and the benefits to shareholders and the benefits to himself."
An alternative scheme could be based on shares or cash but was unlikely to be ready in time for next month's annual meeting in Auckland.
"The working of the detail will take as long as it takes and as soon as we've got that ready, we'll go back to shareholders at that point," Falconer said.
If the resolution had not been pulled, shareholders were expected to have approved it, he added.
"As we were looking at it, we thought there are other ways, there are share-based schemes, there are cash-based schemes," Falconer said.
"It might sound curious but we just decided to have another look at it. There's nothing particularly significant about this."
Shareholders Association chairman Bruce Sheppard said he had contacted Hellaby to say the proposed share option plan was inappropriate.
The fundamental principle behind an executive reward plan should be to share in the profits generated for shareholders, Sheppard said.
"You have no control over the share price," Sheppard said. "There's lots of ways of cutting and dicing that game that doesn't create points of competition and points of conflict with shareholders."
It was good that Hellaby listened to shareholder opinion, Sheppard added.
"You have a discussion, they go away, they think about it, they do something," he said. "That has to be something they should get brownie points for."
Hellaby, which owns industrial and retail businesses, posted a net loss of $9.8 million in the year ending June, including an $18.8 million write down of its BBQ Factory business.
Hellaby's share price closed down 3c yesterday at $2.83.
