Financial Times chief executive hands back £510k pay rise

The boss of the Financial Times has agreed to hand back some of his multi-million pound pay package after it sparked fury among the newspaper’s staff.

John ridding will give up the £510,000 pay rise he received following complaints from members of the National Union of Journalists.

The 53-year-old saw his pay jump 25pc higher to £2.6m in 2017 despite falling profits at the paper.

It prompted outrage from the paper’s union branch, who branded it ‘absurdly large’ in an email to its journalists around the world. They called for it to be handed back to reward staff on lower salaries.

Yesterday the chief executive capitulated, agreeing to hand back his pay rise. The overall increase was £510,000 but after tax it was reduced to £280,000, the amount he will pay back.

It will be mainly spent on schemes to help more women get into senior roles at the paper, with the rest going to general coffers, ridding ( pictured) told staff in an email. he claimed his pay had been set by Japanese parent company Nikkei after an independent assessment.

The chief executive added: ‘While our performance has been strong, I recognise that the size of the consequent jump in my own total reward in 2017 feels anomalous and has created concerns.

‘Many key decisions rest with me as chief executive, but collective hard work at the FT underpins our success. For now, I have decided to reinvest into the FT the increase awarded in 2017.

‘The first call on these resources will be a women’s development fund to augment and accelerate our efforts to support the advancement of women into more senior roles at the FT and reduce the gender pay gap.’

Nikkei said in a statement that Mr ridding’s pay award was performance-related but it respected his decision to return the cash. The climbdown came just hours before union members had been due to hold a meeting on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the matter.

They had argued his remuneration had jumped by more than 400pc since he was appointed chief executive in 2006. one union member wrote in an email: ‘John ridding was paid 100 times the salary of a trainee journalist in 2017.’ ridding’s pay rose by nearly a quarter to £2.6m in 2017, accounts show. at the same time, sales at the company rose 3.4pc to £321.4m and profits fell 29.5pc to £4.7m. The FT said its readership across print and online rose 8pc to 910,000. Included in this was a 10pc rise in digital subscriptions to 714,000. ridding said the dip in profits was because of the company’s efforts to shift its efforts from print to digital. In the annual report, he wrote: ‘While we anticipate the external environment to remain challenging in 2018, we expect to benefit from continued growth in digital subscription revenues with print advertising remaining volatile.’