Serco fat cat pension row

SERCO is the latest company to defy inves- tors over lucrative pension payments.

The outsourcer’s boss Rupert Soames was handed £4.5m overall in 2018, including a £255,000 cash pension contribution.

The pension payment was worth 30pc of his £850,000 base salary – putting the business in breach of tough new guidelines from investors’ groups.

Soames, a grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, will also receive this amount in 2019, according to the Serco annual report published yesterday.

But the payments put the firm on a collision course with the influential Investment Association, which represents big City investors. Amid growing concern that cash pension contributions are being used to supplement boardroom pay, the association has warned companies it will target those that hand bosses 25pc or more of their salaries. Serco has partly backed down in the row, saying executives recruited in future will get 20pc.

But its decision to continue paying Soames and finance chief Angus Cockburn 30pc contributions could spark a shareholder rebellion at the AGM.

Soames, 59, is largely credited with turning around the outsourcer after taking over as chief executive in 2014, when it was on the verge of going bust.