£21m to his wife’s firm. £10k a month for travel. Astonishing perks of the Metro Bank tycoon
THE founder and chairman of upstart lender Metro Bank paid his wife’s firm £21m while claiming £10,000 a month himself to cover travel and living expenses.
Flamboyant US businessman Vernon Hill gets £120,000 a year to cover trips to London to run the lender, which is held up as a champion for fairer banking.
The cash is on top of his annual pay of £376,667, accounts reveal.
Hill, a billionaire who co-founded Metro in 2010 and is famed for always carrying around his Yorkshire terrier Sir Duffield II, already faces anger from shareholders over a cosy deal with his wife Shirley’s architecture company, Interarch.
The bank has given more than £21m to Interarch for designing branches and working on branding in the past seven years. It handed over £4.6m last year alone. The payments have infuriated investors such as Royal London, which has a 0.44pc stake, and will vote against Hill’s re-election as chairman next week.
Shareholder advisory group Glass Lewis is also opposing his re-election, saying: ‘We question the need for the company to engage in business relationships with its directors and their close relations.’
Metro says its deal with Interarch is above board and the terms are at least as good as those available from its rivals.
If Hill loses the vote he will be forced to quit. The tycoon wants to take on big lenders with a bank he argues is more customer-friendly.