Berkeley boss builds fortune

TONY Pidgley, the founder of Berkeley Group, has become the second highest paid FTSE 100 boss after the housebuilder joined the top flight of London’s listed companies, writes Hugo Duncan.

Pidgley, a former Barnardo’s boy who helped found Berkeley in 1976 and later floated it, took home £23.3m last year – second only to Sir Martin Sorrell, the boss of advertising and media giant WPP, who earned £43m.

Six of the Berkeley board stand to get 16.1m shares between them – worth £545m at the current share price of £33.99.

Besides chairman Tony Pidgley, who owns 6.4m shares worth £217.5m at current prices, managing director Rob Perrins, who earned £2.3m last year, would also get 5m shares if targets are hit. That would be worth £170m.

The payouts at Berkeley, which last week joined the FTSE 100, are dependent on the company returning £1.7bn to shareholders over 10 years.

At rival Persimmon, around 160 managers are in line to collect 30.2m shares by the end of 2021. At the current share price of £20.71 those shares are worth £625m.

Chief executive Jeff Fairburn, who earned a total of £1.9m last year as bonuses and other benefits topped up his £605,000 salary, stands to get 4.8m shares worth £99m at current prices.

The awards, under a longterm incentive plan put in place t hree years ago, depend on Persimmon hitting certain targets and returning £1.9bn or £6.20 a share in dividends to investors over a decade to 2021.

If they fail, the management do not pick up any of the shares.

The dividend payments due to investors could also reduce the company’s share price and therefore the size of the awards.