FOOTSIE FAT CATS

The lucrative cash handouts pocketed by

by Holly Black and James Burton

AN ELITE band of bosses running some of Britain’s biggest companies are being handed cash perks worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to bolster their enormous salaries.

Chief executives of FTSE 100 firms earned an average of £4.5m last year – or 160 times the average wage in the UK of £28,000 – with the highest paid taking home tens of millions.

A Mail investigation into the accounts of these businesses this month exposed how bosses are getting almost £11m a year in lucrative perks and expenses.

The probe can now reveal the lavish handouts often include huge cash payments on top of salaries and bonuses – for things such as security and ‘wellbeing’.

Critics said the extra cash payments were ‘completely inappropriate’ and that fat cat bosses were ‘ totally out of touch with their own shareholders and the rest of society’.

The huge salaries are paid by the owners of the companies – including millions of members of the public who have a stake through the pension funds that look after their savings.

The revelations come days after Theresa May warned boardroom excess ‘damages the social fabric of our country’ and ‘emboldens those on the far Left who hate to see business succeed’.

In one of the most egregious examples, Christopher Bailey, former boss of fashion house Burberry, receives £ 440,000 a year as a cash allowance to spend how he pleases.

Bailey, 46, like all senior managers at the company, receives an 80pc discount on the retail price of Burberry products and last year earned a total of £3.5m. He is not alone.

Media tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell, who turned advertising group WPP into one of the world’s largest firms, gets £200,000 ‘to enable him to undertake his role and ensure his security and wellbeing’.

Sorrell earned £48.1m last year, making him the best-paid boss in the FTSE 100, although this was down from £70.4m a year earlier.

The 72-year- old, who is often excused his big pay deals because of the way he has built up his business, regularly opines on the struggles faced by poor people.

Another vast cash payment was given to Paul Polman, the boss of Unilever, which makes dozens of Britain’s most recognisable brands, including Marmite and Persil.

The 61- year- old pocketed £250,000 as a fixed allowance last year, and £447,000 for insurance and to help pay foreign taxes.

Polman is a campaigner for corporate ethics and claims he has never asked for a pay rise. He was paid £7.7m last year in all.

Elsewhere, Pascal Soriot, 58, chief executive of drug maker AstraZeneca, received a £103,000 allowance and had a total pay packet of £13.4m last year.

Staff at Lloyds Banking Group, including chief executive Antonio Horta- Osorio, 53, get a cash sum equivalent to 4pc of their salary to spend on benefits or keep.

In his case, this equated to £42,440 on his base salary of £1.1m. He made £5.5m including bonuses and other perks.

Catherine Howarth, chief executive of campaign group ShareAction, said: ‘These extra perks for top executives are completely inappropriate. They are a symptom of a class of people totally out of touch with their own shareholders and the rest of society.’

Tom Becket, chief investment officer at Psigma Asset Management, said: ‘ Shareholders need to vote down executive pay structures where they are not justified.’