Category Archives: Executive pay and bonuses

NatWest criticised over £1.2m pay for boss with ‘limited experience’

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Governance adviser says Paul Thwaite could have been offered lower starting salary than predecessor Alison Rose

NatWest has been criticised for paying its new boss a salary of £1.2m despite his “limited experience” as a chief executive, amid a wider shareholder backlash in the City of London over bumper corporate pay.

As the government prepares to sell shares in the bank before the general election, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) warned that Paul Thwaite would be paid the same salary as the bank’s former chief executive, Alison Rose, despite lacking her experience as a lead executive.

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British Gas owner doubles boss’s pay to £8m – despite qualms over previous rise

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Details of Chris O’Shea’s ballooning package emerge in Centrica’s annual report after company reports bumper profits

The boss of the British Gas owner, Centrica, has seen his earnings nearly double to £8.2m, despite having admitted that his smaller pay packet the previous year was “impossible to justify”.

Chris O’Shea earned a basic salary of £903,000, which was topped up by cash and share bonuses worth an extra £7.3m.

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US-style executive pay packets in UK would ‘risk higher inequality’

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Leading social scientists issue warning after call by business leaders and London Stock Exchange

More than 20 leading social scientists have warned the UK’s biggest investment companies and pension funds that allowing US-style executive pay packages could “create a significant risk of higher inequality” and “much worse lower levels of happiness, health and wellbeing across society”.

The academics said they had decided to speak out as an increasing number of British business leaders and the London Stock Exchange have argued for much higher pay awards to improve the UK’s competitiveness.

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Fujitsu bosses have been paid £37m since it won Post Office contract

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Spotlight turns on seven executives who presided over Horizon contract that led to huge miscarriage of justice

Bosses at Fujitsu have collected about £37m in pay, bonuses and compensation for loss of office since the technology company won the contract to supply the software at the heart of the Post Office Horizon scandal, it has emerged.

Accounts going back 25 years reveal the seven-figure sums paid out to executives of the UK division of the Japanese-owned technology company, even as more than 900 people were prosecuted as a result of flaws in the system their company supplied.

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George Osborne to collect share of £28m payout for work at City advisory firm

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The former chancellor is one of four partners at Robey Warshaw, which did not specify how much he would collect

George Osborne will collect a share of a £28m payout for his work as partner at the City advisory firm Robey Warshaw.

The former chancellor, who orchestrated the austerity drive after the financial crisis, is one of four partners at the Mayfair-based company which announced on Friday it would pay out a total of £27.98m to four men.

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L&G opens door for huge US-style bonuses for UK asset managers

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Update to pay policy includes room for ‘necessary flexibility’ to attract best talent to London-listed firm

One of the largest UK pension and insurance firms has opened the door to backing US-style mega-bonuses for London listed companies despite fears that executive pay is fuelling inequality and encouraging “short-term risk taking”.

Legal & General Investment Management has updated its pay policy to say there is room for the “necessary flexibility” needed to attract the best talent. It acknowledges “an increased push” by UK companies towards “remunerations structures that are more closely aligned to US-style pay”.

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Thames Water accused of ‘flimsy PR stunt’ over bonus as boss’s pay swells

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Sarah Bentley lands £1.5m package despite saying she would shun bonus amid criticism of water companies

Thames Water has been accused of conducting a “flimsy PR stunt” as it prepares to report that its chief executive has landed nearly double her annual salary with a £1.5m pay package – after announcing that she would shun her bonus amid intense criticism of Britain’s water companies.

Sarah Bentley said last month that she and the firm’s finance chief, Alastair Cochran, would forgo their bonuses and any payments due under long-term incentive plans for the 2022-23 financial year.

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BP boss could be in line for special bonus of up to £11.4m

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Firm set for clash with investors over possible payout to Bernard Looney from three-year share award plan

BP is set for a clash with investors after it emerged that its chief executive could be in line for a special bonus of up to £11.4m. The payment, in shares, would be on top of his £1.38m salary and annual bonus for 2022.

Strong growth in BP’s share price means Bernard Looney is set for a multimillion-pound payout from a three-year share award plan set up in 2020, when countries around the world were in lockdown and the company was cutting jobs amid a global collapse in demand for oil.

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HSBC quarterly profits more than double after interest rate rises

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Bank increases CEO’s bonus and plans bigger shareholder payout as it faces pressure from investor Ping An

HSBC has increased bonus payouts for its chief executive after fourth-quarter profits more than doubled on the back of a jump in mortgage and loan costs for its borrowers.

The London-headquartered lender said it had increased Noel Quinn’s bonus by 36% to nearly $2.2m (£1.8m), taking his overall pay to $5.5m for 2022. That compares with his $4.9m payout in 2021.

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NatWest accused of ‘unjust’ profiteering after CEO paid £5.2m

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Alison Rose becomes group’s second-highest-paid boss as bank reports largest profits since 2007

NatWest has been accused of “unjust” profiteering as it handed its boss Alison Rose a £5.2m pay package and upped its bonus pool for bankers, after the bailed out lender made its biggest profit since 2007 on the back of higher mortgage costs for customers.

The bank – which is still 44% owned by the taxpayer – revealed on Friday that Rose’s pay had soared by 46% from £3.6m a year earlier, partly because of the higher value of shares doled out as part of her long-term incentive plan.

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Brexit exodus helps drive record number in EU banks paid €1m-plus

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Data shows UK banks losing well-paid staff, as Italy, France and Spain make up 70% of rise in EU top earners

A record 1,957 bankers across Europe earned more than €1m (£878,000) last year, according to data that shows the scale at which some of the best-paid jobs in Britain have moved from London to the EU since Brexit.

The European Banking Authority disclosed on Thursday that the number of bankers earning €1m or more a year had increased by more than 40%, from 1,383 in 2020 to 1,957 in 2021. Excluding UK figures, it is the highest number of €1m-plus European bankers since the EBA began collecting the data in 2010.

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Apple’s Tim Cook to take 50% pay hit after shareholder feedback

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‘Target compensation’ for CEO down from $99.4m in 2022 to an expected $49m for current year

The Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, is expected to have his pay cut by almost 50% this year to about $49m (£40m) after the billionaire boss asked the company to “adjust his compensation” in the light of feedback from shareholders disappointed at the fall in the company’s share price.

Cook, 62, who became CEO after the death of the co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, was paid $99.4m in 2022 and $98.8m in 2021. But the company said in a regulatory filing late on Thursday night that it had set a “target compensation” of $49m for 2023.

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FTSE 100 bosses paid more in three days than average UK worker for whole year

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CEOs pass milestone nine working hours earlier than last year, with pay up 39% on January 2022

The bosses of Britain’s biggest companies will have made more money in 2023 by Thursday afternoon than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to analysis of vast pay gaps amid strike action and the cost of living crisis.

The High Pay Centre, a thinktank that campaigns for fairer pay for workers, said that by 2pm on the third working day of the year, a FTSE 100 chief executive will have been paid more on an hourly basis than a UK worker’s annual salary, based on median average remuneration figures for both groups.

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Goldman Sachs bankers brace for hefty cut to bonuses

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Bonus pool could be slashed by up to 40%, in possibly the lender’s largest cut to payouts since the financial crisis

Goldman Sachs bankers are reportedly at risk of having their bonus pool slashed by up to 40%, in what could be the lender’s largest cut to payouts since the 2008 financial crisis.

The bank is still in the process of deciding the size of its bonus pools for 2022, but the prospective cut could mean its 3,000 investment bankers endure the most significant drop in variable pay among their peers, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the news.

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Bumper City bonuses expected from takeover frenzy after pound hits record low

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UK firms now temptingly cheaper, with a ‘wave of bids’ from overseas buyers meaning payouts for bankers

Bankers could rake in bumper bonuses from a “wave of bids” by overseas buyers for UK businesses made temptingly cheaper as a result of the plunge in the pound against the dollar. A fresh frenzy of merger and acquisition activity would mean a ramp-up in payouts for City dealmakers.

Sterling fell by nearly 5% at one point on Monday to $1.0327, its lowest since Britain went decimal in 1971. The currency has fallen by more than a fifth against the dollar this year.

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City sceptical about benefits of scrapping cap on banker bonuses

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Sources at largest banks say the did not lobby for move nor expect it to result in major changes to pay packets

When City of London executives were summoned to No 11 Downing Street earlier this month, they were promised reforms that would boost growth, attract talented bankers and usher a new era of prosperity for financial services.

But what the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, failed to mention to bank bosses was that their pay would become a lightning rod for controversy in the mini-budget that followed.

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Kwarteng plan to lift cap on bankers’ bonuses infuriates unions

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Unite leader deplores prospect of post-Brexit deregulation drive ‘when millions are struggling’

Unions have reacted with fury to the prospect of the government scrapping a cap on bankers’ bonuses, as ministers geared up for a return to near-normal politics next week, topped by an emergency mini-budget on Friday.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, who will set out plans for tax cuts and give more details about the government’s plans to limit rising energy bills, is also considering whether to shed the legacy of an EU-wide cap on bonuses of twice an employee’s salary, imposed after the 2008 financial crash.

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Kwasi Kwarteng planning to scrap caps on bankers’ bonuses

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Critics question chancellor’s idea of abolishing rules imposed after 2008 financial crash during cost of living crisis

The UK chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, is reportedly planning to scrap caps on bankers’ bonuses in a controversially timed move to attract more talent to the City of London.

A source close to Kwarteng confirmed the chancellor was considering lifting the cap but emphasised that no decision had been taken.

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Liz Truss faces backlash over plan to lift cap on bankers’ bonuses – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Kwasi Kwarteng’s plan to lift cap criticised as ‘very bad timing’ during cost of living crisis

In its response to the legal proceedings launched by the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol (see 11.54am), the UK government has said that it has unilaterally decided to continue suspending border checks on farm produce and other goods entering NI from Great Britain, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports.

The European Union is considering its next steps after receiving the UK’s response to legal threats over the failure to comply with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, PA Media reports. PA says:

Despite politics as normal being paused while the nation mourns the Queen’s death, the government responded to the action ahead of today’s deadline.

The bloc had requested a response to its raft of infringement proceedings over the UK’s failure to comply with the rules before the end of the day.

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Bonuses for water bosses in England up 20% last year despite sewage failures

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Water company executives received on average £100,000 in bonuses, despite most firms missing targets

The annual bonuses paid to water company executives rose by 20% in 2021, despite most of the firms failing to meet sewage pollution targets.

Figures show on average executives received £100,000 in one-off payments on top of their salaries, during a period in which foul water was being pumped for 2.7m hours into England’s rivers and swimming spots.

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