Ocado chief Steiner tops FTSE pay list
Men still earn more than women
OCADO boss Tim Steiner has been named the bestpaid boss in the FTSe 100 after a bumper year for the online grocer. The 50-year-old ( left) took home £58.7m in 2019, one of six blue-chip chief executives to earn more than £10m.
Most of it was a £54m bonus, from a five-year scheme linked to Ocado’s share price.
Investors have received a windfall over the same period, as the shares have shot up. Anyone who invested £1,000 five years ago would now be sitting on stock worth £5,424.
But men once again outearned women, taking the top nine spots in the ranks of the best-paid.
The average pay for female bosses was £4m, compared to the £4.74m handed to men.
emma Walmsley ( right), the boss of Gaviscon owner Glaxosmithkline, was the highestearning woman, with £8.4m.
Campaigners have criticised token efforts to rein in bonuses during the pandemic.
Only 36 FTSe 100 firms have announced cuts to the pay packages of their top brass since coronavirus struck. The ones that trimmed bonuses focused only on ‘superficial’ or short-term rewards, says the high Pay Centre thinktank, which today publishes a report with the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, said: ‘The bulk of cuts made so far appear to be short-term and don’t signify meaningful, long-term change. We continue to find a disconnect between the total reward packages of chief executives and their actual contribution to long-term performance.’
Pascal Soriot at pharmaceuticals titan Astrazeneca, Ivan Menezes at Guinness owner Diageo, and Mark Cutifani at mining firm Anglo American all received vast pay packages of more than £11m last year.
The average package of a boss on the FTSe 100 was 119 times more than the average UK full-time worker.
Luke hildyard, director of the high Pay Centre, said: ‘If we want to protect as many jobs as possible and give the lower-paid workers who have got the country through this crisis the pay rise they deserve, we will need to rethink the balance of pay between those at the top and everybody else.’
In total, 81 FTSe companies also paid long-term incentives to their bosses last year, adding up to £238.2m.
Lord Mann, the former chair of the Treasury committee, said: ‘In the current crisis, it is vital we all pull together – and that includes company chief executives.
‘Now is a time for reasonable behaviour.’