Ocado chief is handed £29m shares bonus

OCADO boss tim Steiner has been awarded 2.2m shares worth £29m, taking his total holding in the company to nearly £340m.

the bonus was handed to the 49-year-old as part of a scheme based on the online grocer’s performance over five years.

Steiner ( pictured) has an interest in 25.7m ocado shares, which have soared in value from less than 400p at the end of 2017 to last night’s closing price of 1319.5p. the rise from 790p at the beginning of this year has added around £1.4m to his fortune each day.

ocado shares are on course to double for the second year running, making it one of Britain’s most successful stocks.

And Steiner’s holding is set to rocket further with a new bonus scheme, worth up to £100m over the next five years, which was signed off by shareholders earlier this month.

the so-called Value Creation Plan will pay out if he delivers 10pc share growth each year.

the former goldman Sachs bond trader will receive the maximum if the share price grows at 25pc per annum, and would vest by May 2024.

He added a ‘golden handcuff’, which he was given after ocado floated, to his share pot in August and it is now worth £109m. the total wealth of Steiner and his family is estimated to be £ 368m, according to the Sunday times rich List, up from £130m a year ago. the figure puts the family ahead of the Beckhams, who are worth £355m.

the family’s Linic trust, based in the Bahamas, recently sold £ 127m of ocado shares.

the company, has become a stock market darling thanks to its pioneering technology such as stock-picking robots and state-of-the-art warehouses, earning it the nickname ‘the Microsoft of retail’. In February it announced a joint venture with Marks & Spencer that will give the upmarket retailer a food delivery service for the first time. In May last year, ocado shares jumped 45pc when a tie-up with US supermarket giant Kroger was unveiled. It has recently invested £7m in a robotics firm specialising in food production. Last week Morrisons announced it was loosening ties with ocado, allowing it to sell through other platforms such as Amazon. In return, ocado took back distribution centre space used for delivering Morrisons online orders, allowing it to fulfil orders for its own customers after its hightech distribution centre in Andover was destroyed by a fire in February. ocado declined to comment.