Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Bonus blocked for M&S bosses Chief’s pay cut as chairman tackles ‘failure’
THE boss of struggling Marks & Spencer pocketed more than £1.1million last year – despite not getting a bonus.
Chief executive Steve Rowe received an £810,000 annual salary, £203,000 pension perk, plus another £100,000 in shares and “benefits”.
The package was down from the £1.6m he got in 2016, in part because he and other bigwigs did not get an annual bonus.
M&S said its boardroom pay setting committee “decided to exercise its discretion that no payment would be made to any director, irrespective of any achievements against each director’s individual objectives.”
Rowe and other members of M&S’S leadership team also won’t get a pay rise this year.
M&S last month revealed full-year profits crashed 62% to just under £67million in the year to March 31, after a £320m hit from its plans to close failing stores and revamping the business. Clothing and homeware sales tumbled 1.9%, although profit margins edged higher as it reduced levels of discounting.
The pay news came as no-nonsense chairman Archie Norman delivered a withering assessment of the firm’s past mistakes.
He said: “Behind most underperforming businesses there sits organisational failure and culture that has proved resistant to change. Our case is no exception.”
He admitted that shareholders and shoppers had heard promises that proved to be “false dawns” from previous management.
“The chill winds of competition in all our markets are now such that time is running out and we cannot afford to fail,” Norman added.
The pay details were disclosed in M&S’S annual report yesterday.
It came just weeks after the firm announced plans to close more than 100 branches by 2022, a major increase on its previous target of 60 announced in November 2016.