Nice perk... if you can get it
As if their pay deals weren’t enough, look at these fat cats’ free benefits
THE perks lavished on the bosses of Britain’s biggest companies are so extravagant that one received as much to move house as an average employee earns in a lifetime.
The Mail on Sunday today reveals the extraordinary extras enjoyed by the corporate elite, following our revelations last week that the top 20 corporate chiefs were paid £237 million between them in 2016.
The average FTSE 100 chief executive took home £4.5 million last year, with Sir Martin Sorrell of media giant WPP pocketing more than £48 million. But scrutiny of their accounts revealed that they were also showered with perks as part of their generous packages.
Stefan Stern, director of the High Pay Centre, says: ‘It is not just the really big pay packages that rankle. These other perks are every bit as offensive as the cash figure. They symbolise the reality gap between the lives and expectations of some chief executives and their employees and their customers.’
Beau O’Sullivan, spokesman for pressure group Share Action, added :‘ Who is policing these egregiously hefty perks? It’s down to the City’s biggest investors like pension funds to step in. Mail on Sunday readers who are outraged by these findings can put pressure on their pension providers.’
In 2014, insurance firm Prudential said it might take until the age of 56 for the earnings of an average employee to add up to £1 million.
‘These extras raise eyebrows and hackles’
Yet its boss, Mike Wells, received more than £ 1.6 million over two years just to help him move to London from the US. That includes £514,000 to pay stamp duty, enough to buy a £ 5 million home, plus £400,000 to cover interest payments (£28,000 a month in 2016) on his mortgage. Because the stamp duty payment was classed as a taxable benefit, the company then gave him another £330,000 to cover his tax bill. While Wells was waiting for the purchase to go through, he got more than £178,000 for temporary accommodation, having already been handed a £200,000 allowance for ‘relocation and shipping’.
The Pru, which declined to comment, also handed over large sums to Anne Richards, who took over as boss of its fund management business M&G in June last year. It shelled out nearly £45,500 to cover travel from her home in Edinburgh, part of the £3.9 million she received in total last year.
‘ This is the kind of thing that raises eyebrows and hackles,’ said Mr Stern. But such relocation payments are routinely doled out to executives and their families.
John Rogers, the chief executive of Argos, who pocketed £1.6 million last year, gets a £52,147 allowance because his job moved to Milton Keynes and he wanted to keep his family home in Epsom, Surrey. The company said the payments were ‘business expenses, rather than perks for personal gain’.
Dr Flemming Ornskov, of biotech company Shire, received more than £400,000 to pay for his family to join him in Boston after he moved to the US following his company’s takeover of rival Baxalta.
Stuart Gulliver, the chief execu- tive of HSBC, spends much of his time in Hong Kong, living in bankowned accommodation – a perk valued at £263,000 a year. He was paid £5.7 million in 2016.
Standard trappings include cars and chauffeurs plus medical and life insurance. But some bosses enjoyed far more unique perks.
Pete Redfern, paid £ 3.8 million last year as boss of house-builder Taylor Wimpey, built a £1.7 million portfolio of properties in London and Spain, using a staff discount to get five per cent off – a benefit worth £80,000. The company says every employee can benefit from the discount on one property a year – though few will be able to afford to take the same sort of advantage as its chief executive.
As part of his £48 million package, Sir Martin Sorrell received £228,000 in benefits, including £37,000 for a car, £68,000 for healthcare and an £86,000 accommodation allowance when travelling abroad – even when he stays in his own flat in New York, a practice the company justifies as it saves on hotel bills.
He previously received £274,000 to pay for his wife, Cristiana, to accompany him on business trips around the world. He has now decided to start paying those costs and repaid the sum in 2015.
Peter Crook, who earned £6.3 million at lending firm Provident Financial before stepping down last month, was handed perks worth £ 102,000 last year, including an unspecified sum to cover the cost of splitting his working time between Bradford and London.
At G 4 S, Ashley Almanza’s £ 190,000 perks in 2015 included £72,000 on a security system. The company – criticised for a staff training fiasco at the London Olympics and which runs the crisis-hit Brook House immigration centre – said similar systems have been provided to several employees.
Royal Mail’s Moya Greene last year received benefits of £43,000 – almost 1,000 times the average employee benefits–including flights to her native Canada. She is also topping up the £1.9 million she earned last year by taking on a £60,000 a year part-time job as a non-executive director at easyJet.
Burberry president Christopher Bailey, who has just stepped back from his role as chief executive, receives a cash allowance of £440,000 as part of his benefits, and could have claimed a further £20,000 in clothing expenses last year. Other board members had specific clothing allowances last year running into five figures. Bailey was paid just over £3.5 million last year. The company declined to comment.
Ivan Menezes,w ho earned £ 3.4 million last year as boss of drinks giant Diageo, receives a ‘products allowance’ of £1,250 to help him buy his rounds. Diageo said this is not an executive perk, but a benefit for all employees. It was part of a benefits package worth £92,000 last year.