The property boss who’ll pocket £50m
First the head of housing giant Persimmon got £100m. Now meet...
THE rags-to-riches founder of high- end housebuilder Berkeley Group could pocket nearly £50m for two years’ work.
tony Pidgley – who worked his way up from nothing after being adopted by travellers at the age of four – sparked outrage when he picked up £23.3m last year. Now analysis by the Mail suggests the Berkeley chairman could bag another £23.7m for 2015-16, bringing his total for two years to £47m.
If a series of share option schemes pay out in full, the company’s directors will split a £348.1m bonus pot in the next five years. Yesterday, the Mail reported how the boss of rival builder Persimmon Jeff fairburn was set to pick up £100m from its bonus scheme.
this colossal sum is certain to spark outrage among activists – particularly at a time when sky-high house prices leave thousands struggling to get on the property ladder.
Stefan Stern of the High Pay Centre said: ‘the contrast between the experience of people trying to buy a home and the awards for the executives of companies meant to be building them couldn’t be more stark.
‘By what standards do they deserve these awards? With a housing market like the one we’ve got, it’s just quite hard to reconcile.
‘Is there really any justification for numbers this big, when housing in this country is in crisis?’
Pidgley, 68, picked up an £825,000 salary in the year to April 30, and was in line for an annual bonus of up to three times this – or £2.5m.
He will also have been given up to 750,000 shares under a longterm bonus scheme, worth £20.4m at today’s prices.
full pay details will be revealed when Berkeley publishes its annual report in August. the firm’s financial results for the year are due out today. It is just the start of a bonanza which could see the chairman pocket five million more shares in 2021 under another long-term bonus plan. these are worth £101.2m today.
With assets of about £270m, Pidgley has already made one fortune. He was born in Surrey to a single mother and cared for by charity Barnardo’s before he was adopted by travellers. He grew up in a disused railway carriage, sold logs with his family and learned to drive a lorry and take apart its engine by the age of 14. Pidgley left school aged 15 barely able to read or write, and set up a haulage firm which he sold five years later to developer Crest Nicholson after building up a 40-strong fleet of lor- ries. the deal made him a millionaire.
He launched Berkeley in 1976 and quickly developed a reputation for beating the market through a series of savvy predictions on when house prices were about to turn. He has had to see off takeover bids from both his son tony junior – with whom he is once again on good terms – and notorious venture capitalist Guy Hands.
Pidgley split from first wife ruby, a merchant seaman’s daughter, in an acrimonious divorce in 1999.
He is married to second wife Sarah ( pictured), a dressage rider he met playing polo, and the pair have a vast estate at their 16thcentury house in Windsor.
fellow directors are also set to cash in. Managing director rob Perrins could pick up £10.2m of shares in his bonus this year. And in total, the board will be given up to £43.1m-worth of shares.