Fat cat builder hands wife £10m in shares
A BUILDING boss forced out of his job over a toxic bonus scheme has handed his wife shares worth nearly £10m.
Persimmon chief executive Jeff Fairburn, who is leaving at the end of the year after a furious backlash over his pay, gave his wife Jayne 510,400 shares in the company.
Those shares were worth £9.9m when the stock closed at 1946p last night.
It followed a similar move earlier this year when Fairburn, 52, gave her shares worth £3.2m.
Persimmon also revealed that Fairburn was handed another £43.2m worth of stock from the notorious bonus scheme on Thursday. After tax, the amount was reduced to £22.9m. It followed a payment earlier in the year worth £26m, or £13.9m after tax.
Persimmon set up the bonus scheme which led to Fairburn’s payments in 2012, to reward directors if they hit targets linked to shareholder returns, but the board failed to impose limits on the maximum amount payable.
The Help To Buy scheme launched in 2013 by then Chancellor George Osborne, which allows buyers to borrow money from the state and spend it on a new property, was a huge subsidy for developers and put an unexpected rocket under Persimmon’s share price.
The stock has surged almost 90pc since Help To Buy was launched, turning the bonus programme into a massive moneyspinner for executives.
It infuriated critics who claimed they were benefiting from the use of public funds to fix the failing housing market.
The lavish awards have also angered fellow businessmen. Lord Bamford, the billionaire owner of digger company JCB, became the latest in an interview yesterday. ‘Persimmon’s not a revolutionary business,’ he told the London Evening Standard. ‘ The paid hands, were they doing anything extraordinary? No.’
Fairburn, a motor-racing fanatic who once booked a family holiday near Silverstone so he could watch the British Grand Prix, has run Persimmon since 2013. He has been forced out amid fears the pay row is harming the company’s reputation.
The chief executive lives in a £1m house in Durham but is known for his relative modesty, avoiding the flashy cars and corporate jets loved by other FTSE 100 chiefs.
He is married to Jayne, 51, who is treasurer for pancreatitis support group Pancreas North, and they have three children.
Fairburn cannot sell much of the stock he has been handed through the bonus scheme until 2021 under an agreement with the t ecom company.
Luke Hildyard, of the High Pay Centre, said: ‘The Persimmon saga doesn’t get any less offensive with time. It’s truly tr surreal that Fairburn has been able to walk away with such a blatantly excessive and unwarranted payout, and represents a stain on British business and corporate governance that will be difficult to erase.’
Fairburn agreed to give up part of his bonus, and pledged to set up a charitable trust using some of the money. But pressure continued, and last month he had to give up his job after refusing to answer journalists’ questions about the bonus.
Persimmon said that as Fairburn was leaving at the company’s request, it was not legally able to withhold any of the share payouts coming his way.