Bosses paid millions just to move house

TOP bosses have received more than £6m in relocation allowances in recent years, the Mail has found.

Some chief executives moved less than 100 miles due to work commitments but received hundreds of thousands of pounds from their Footsie employers.

Stamp duty, school fees and flights to visit their home countries have also been thrown into the generous deals. This is despite the pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive averaging £4.6m a year – 160 times the average UK salary.

There was fury at National Grid chief John Pettigrew’s £497,000 allowance to relocate just 97 miles from Warwick to London.

As power cuts brought parts of Britain to a standstill on Friday, Pettigrew was accused by Labour MP Chris Evans of accepting ‘rewards for failure’.

Pettigrew, 50, was earning £4.6m when he took over in 2016 and was paid the money to cover travel expenses, a short-term let and stamp duty on a London property.

Relocation handouts have long been used to attract top talent from around the world to British firms. They form part of benefits packages, which often include life insurance, chauffeured cars or gym and club memberships.

Mike Wells, of insurer Prudential, received £2.3m over four years in mortgage repayments, moving costs and flights home when he relocated from the US to the UK.

The staggering figure, worth ten times the average UK house, included £845,000 in stamp duty – the amount payable on a £7.75m UK home bought today. Hamish Paton, chief executive of the high interest lender Amigo, was paid up to £325,000 towards his move from London to near Bournemouth, a distance of just 108 miles, when he was appointed in April.

Tesco boss Dave Lewis was given £142,000 when he moved out of London in 2016 and closer to the supermarket’s headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. The payment, for a journey that would otherwise take 37 minutes by train, triggered anger from shareholders.

National Grid said Pettigrew’s reimbursement for location costs was ‘ applicable to all employees whose jobs move location’. He has been with the company since 1991 and risen up the ranks.

Last year his salary increased to £944,000 while his long-term performance awards rose to £2.2m, part of a total package worth £4.6m.

David Schwimmer, boss of the London Stock Exchange, will receive £550,000 over three years in accommodation and flights after moving from the US in April 2018.

Aviva’s boss Maurice Tulloch used a £250,000 allowance to relocate from Canada when the FTSE 100 firm promoted him in March.

Diageo finance chief Kathryn Mikells was given £162,000 in 2017 to move from the US to the UK – which the brewer said could include a housing allowance and school fees.