Exclusive: Eight companies expect to be covered by the ban for 2025-26, the Guardian can reveal
Water company bosses’ total pay rose over the past year despite a government bonus ban and public outrage over pollution and bills, the Guardian can reveal.
One chief executive, Mark Thurston of Anglian Water, received £1.9m – including a £500,000 “retention payment”, despite the bonus ban.
Continue reading...In its final report the High Pay Centre says the median remuneration of a FTSE 100 CEO has risen to a record £5.06m
The bosses of Britain’s largest listed companies received record pay last year, fuelling the widest earnings gap with workers in eight years.
Median pay for FTSE 100 chief executives hit £5.06m in the last financial year, according to data released by the High Pay Centre, an 8.6% increase on £4.66m the previous year and the highest level on record.
Continue reading...Martin Seidenberg, chief executive of parent company IDS, handed payouts after takeover of UK postal service
The boss of Royal Mail’s parent company received almost £7m in pay and bonuses last year – more than triple the previous figure – despite group profits slumping by a fifth.
Martin Seidenberg, group chief executive of International Distribution Services (IDS), took home £6.9m in pay, bonus and long-term incentive scheme awards in the year to 31 March, compared with £2.1m the previous year.
Continue reading...Proposal requires Rene Haas to steer US-listed British company to ‘exceptional growth metrics’
The chief executive of Arm is in line for a pay package that would make him a billionaire if he hits targets to turn the microchip firm into the UK’s first trillion-dollar company.
Arm, which is listed in New York but retains its global headquarters in Cambridge, has proposed a pay scheme for Rene Haas in which he will receive generous annual share awards plus a maximum bonus of $800m if he can hit certain “exceptional growth metrics”.
Continue reading...Company, which paid boss Joshua Schulman £4m in year to March, becomes latest to extend deadline to become carbon neutral
The boss of Burberry could earn up to £12.2m after the luxury British brand introduced a new bonus scheme, while its annual report also revealed the company has scaled back its climate ambitions.
Joshua Schulman, a former chief executive of the US fashion brand Coach who was hired in July 2024 to help revive Burberry, was paid £4m in the year to March, up from £2.5m for his first nine months in the job.
Continue reading...Payment for Inditex founder, the world’s 15 richest person, tops last year’s dividend of €3.1bn
The billionaire founder of Zara is to receive a company record €3.23bn (£2.8bn) dividend this year from the world’s biggest fashion retailer.
Amancio Ortega, who still controls 59% of Spain’s Inditex and whose daughter Marta Ortega Pérez is now chair, will receive half his dividend in May and half in November – as will other shareholders.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Mandatory company disclosures show one bonus amounted to $2.5m, more than double their annual salary
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
More than $14m in bonuses was awarded to senior Australian health insurance staff at Bupa little more than a year before the company admitted to unconscionably causing customers to cancel or delay medical procedures.
The bonuses, for more than 20 staff in 2023-24, came after the insurer had engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct” between May 2018 and August 2023. This affected more than 7,500 customers, leaving many out of pocket for procedures they were entitled to claim.
Continue reading...Company says extra payments relating to work for Kelda Holdings were covered by shareholders not billpayers
The boss of Yorkshire Water, one of Britain’s biggest water suppliers, has received £1.3m in previously undisclosed extra pay since 2023 via an offshore parent company, the Guardian can reveal.
Nicola Shaw received £660,000 from Yorkshire Water’s Jersey-registered parent company, Kelda Holdings, in the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 financial years. The size of the fees was not disclosed in the annual report of the regulated subsidiary, Yorkshire Water Services.
Continue reading...Total remuneration at companies in England and Wales – many of them under scrutiny for sewage discharge – was £15m in 2024-25
The pay of water company chief executives in England and Wales rose by 5% in the last financial year to an average of £1.1m, despite a ban on bonuses for several companies and widespread outrage over the sector’s poor performance.
Total pay reported by water companies reached £15m in 2024-25, up 5% on £13.8m the previous year, according to Guardian analysis of 14 companies’ annual reports.
Continue reading...Lender says Debbie Crosbie’s package ‘should compete with banks’ but critics say building societies are ‘supposed to be the good guys’
Nationwide is under fire for refusing to give members a binding vote on a controversial 43% pay rise for its chief executive, Debbie Crosbie, which could total up to £7m.
Campaigners say it leaves the mutual’s members with fewer rights than shareholders of listed UK banks and exposes a worrying “loophole” in building society rules.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sir Adrian Montague told select committee paying bonuses out of emergency £3bn loan was insisted upon by creditors
The chair of Thames Water could face more questions over his statement to parliament that large bonuses to be paid to senior bosses out of an emergency £3bn loan were insisted upon by creditors.
Sir Adrian Montague told the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) select committee last week that the lenders had insisted that “very substantial” bonuses of up to 50% of salary should be paid to company executives from the controversial loan in order to retain key staff.
Continue reading...One HSBC banker was paid up to £16.6m in 2024 while figure at Barclays was £14.8m after loosening of pay rules
The demise of the UK banker bonus cap has sent pay soaring at Barclays and HSBC where the highest paid bankers have received their biggest payouts since at least 2014.
Analysis of pay documents released this month shows payouts for their most expensive staff surged more than 50% to nearly €20m (£16.6m) last year, after the banks took advantage of looser pay rules and allowed staff to be paid bonuses worth 10 times their salary.
Continue reading...Group reviews office attendance as part of performance-related bonus targets forsenior employees
Senior bankers at Lloyds could be at risk of having their bonuses docked if they fail to follow company orders to be in the office at least two days a week.
Lloyds Banking Group – which owns the Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland brands – has confirmed it is reviewing office attendance as part of performance-related bonus targets for its most senior employees. That includes hybrid staff who, in 2023, were ordered to be in the office at least 40% of the time, which typically amounts to two days a week for those on full-time contracts.
Continue reading...Kathaleen McCormick in Delaware rules Musk not entitled to vast sum despite Tesla shareholders voting to reinstate it
A judge ruled on Monday that Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is still not entitled to receive a $56bn compensation package even though shareholders of the electric vehicle company had voted to reinstate it six months ago.
The ruling by the Delaware judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the court of chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors. The decision cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker. Tesla’s board argued the enormous payment scheme was necessary to keep Musk involved in the company, an argument that the billionaire, already the world’s richest man, echoed.
Continue reading...Rise to £675m after lifting EU bonus cap suggests lender may increase payouts to high-performing bankers
Barclays has bulked up its half-year bonus pool for the first time in three years, raising bankers’ hopes of bigger annual payouts after the lender formally scrapped the EU bonus cap this month.
The bank put £675m towards its bonus pool in the first six months of 2024, according to Barclays filings. That is up from the £665m put aside for its staff bonus pot, which is made up of cash and shares, over the same period in 2023. That bonus pool will continue to be built up until the end of the year, with staff able to be paid up to 10 times their salary now that the EU cap has been set aside.
Continue reading...Brian Niccol, who was poached from Chipotle, will get package worth four times that of his predecessor
The new chief executive of Starbucks is in line for a sign-on pay package worth up to $113m (£88m), in one of the largest such executive deals in corporate history and which is four times larger than that of his predecessor. .
The American coffee chain poached the boss of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Brian Niccol, naming him as its new chief executive this week in a surprise management shake-up, ousting Laxman Narasimhan from the job after just 17 months.
Continue reading...Award for Lawrence Gosden comes despite criticism over business plan and attempts to increase bills by 73%
The chief executive of Southern Water has received a £183,000 bonus despite submitting a business plan that has been criticised by the industry regulator and attempting to raise bills more than any other English water company.
Lawrence Gosden received the bonus as part of a £764,000 pay package, up from £428,000 a year earlier, according to the company’s annual report.
Continue reading...Robyn Denholm says electric carmaker’s CEO could spend his time elsewhere if biggest pay deal in US corporate history isn’t approved
The chair of Tesla has raised the prospect of Elon Musk stepping back from the electric carmaker if shareholders do not back the chief executive’s $56bn (£44bn) pay package, saying there are “other places” the entrepreneur could spend his time.
Robyn Denholm added in a letter to investors that next week’s vote on the biggest remuneration deal in US corporate history was “obviously not about the money” because Musk would remain one of the richest people on the planet regardless of the outcome.
Continue reading...Philip Jansen announced sweeping job cuts during same financial year covered by pay and bonus package
BT’s former chief executive Philip Jansen has been awarded his largest pay and bonus package, a £3.7m reward for the same year in which he announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs at the telecoms company by 2030.
The pay deal for Jansen, who was nicknamed Food Bank Phil after the company set up a “community pantry” for call centre staff struggling to make ends meet, was revealed in BT’s latest annual report.
Continue reading...First-quarter earnings show £580m pool, reflecting increase in share price as bonus cap scrapped in UK
London bankers at Goldman Sachs have seen their pay pot jump by more than 20% so far this year, as the bank’s surging share price added to the prospect of bumper payouts after bonus caps were lifted in the UK.
Filings covering Goldman Sachs International’s (GSI) first-quarter earnings show that it built up a $735m (£580m) pay pool in the three months to March, averaging out at about $218,000 (£170,000) each for its 3,359 staff, the bulk of whom are based in London.
Continue reading...