Cheating Lloyds boss hit with £3m pay cut
. . . but investors get £2.2bn as profits are best for a decade
THE embattled boss of Lloyds has taken a £3.2m pay cut following a year in which he was caught having an affair on a business trip.
Antonio Horta-Osorio took home £5.5m last year, down from £8.7m in 2015.
His bonus fell despite the bank posting its best results for a decade, with profits doubling to £4.2bn.
This performance allowed it to give £2.2bn to investors with a dividend of 3.05p per share – likely to be a boon to the 2.5m people who hold the stock after years in which the bank struggled.
The average retail investor with 6,000 shares will get around £183.
But the successful turnaround risked being overshadowed by revelations about 53-year-old HortaOsorio’s private life.
The Portuguese, who is married to wife Ana, made headlines last summer after he was joined on business trips to Singapore and San Francisco by top academic Dr Wendy Piatt, 46.
Horta-Osorio racked up £3,276 during his Singapore stay, with £550 spent at the hotel spa, and Piatt was seen entering and leaving his suite with her own key. Yesterday, Lloyds chairman Lord Blackwell tried to draw a line under the scandal.
Asked if he wanted to discuss the board’s response, he said: ‘No. We dealt with that at the time. Antonio didn’t breach any company rules, he didn’t breach the company expenses policy and the matter is now closed.’
Lloyds said Horta-Osorio’s pay cut was chiefly down to share price performance, as the stock plunged after the Brexit vote.
His long-term bonus plan paid out £1.6m in 2016, down from £5.2m the previous year.
The boss also took home a £ 900,000 fixed share award, designed as a salary top-up to beat the European Union’s bonus cap. He pocketed £143,000 in benefits such as life insurance and a car allowance, and £ 568,000 towards his pension. His annual bonus rose from £850,000 to £1.2m thanks to improved profits.
He also took a 6pc rise in his base salary, which increased to £1.1m. Next year it will rise by another 8pc – more than the 2pc given to the rest of the bank’s staff. Bosses said that the chief executive’s pay had been frozen for several years as the bank fought to free itself from Government control after its £20.3bn bailout, while other employees’ earnings had risen.
Less than 5pc of the bank is now owned by taxpayers, and it is likely to be fully back in private ownership by the end of May.
David Hillman, of the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said: ‘Lloyds’ chief Horta-Osorio must be laughing all the way to the bank. It’s high time the Government did something about this flawed and unfair culture of rewards.’
Lloyds’ bonus pool for staff rose 11pc to £393m and it set aside £2.1bn to compensate for bad behaviour. This included £1bn to cover PPI mis-selling, taking its bill for the scandal to £17bn.
Traders welcomed the profit figures yesterday, sending shares up 4.4pc, or 2.9p, to 69.7p. Laith Khalaf of Hargreaves Lansdown said: ‘Lloyds is returning to full health after being knocked for six by the financial crisis, since which time the bank has become safer, more profitable, and a good source of dividends for shareholders.’