FAT CATS NAMED AND SHAMED

Two FTSE 100 bosses paid £40m+

Twelve earned more than £10m

Sixteen hit by shareholder revolt

BRITAIN’S top companies are handing bosses obscene rewards while turning a deaf ear to protests from shareholders, a Mail investigation reveals today.

We examined the pay and incentives given to the chief executive of every company in the FTSE 100.

Our research lays bare the worst examples of unabashed greed and excess at the top of corporate Britain. As MPs on the Business Select Committee today quiz Unilever and Royal Mail over fatcat pay, the investigation reveals:

The two highest-paid chief executives each received more than £42m for a single year’s work in 2017;

More than one in six of the top 100 companies ended up on an official blacklist ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May to name and shame those doling out fatcat pay despite shareholder protests;

They include Unilever, which recently was forced to ditch plans to move its headquarters from London to Rotterdam after an investor backlash, and Royal Mail, which is under fire from investors for a huge fall in its share price;

At bailed-out lender Lloyds Banking Group, chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio has pocketed £45m in pay, bonuses and incentives since he took the helm in 2011;

The findings will be sobering for the Prime Minister, who last year declared war on fat cat pay and accused greedy and irresponsible corporate chieftains of wrecking Britain’s social fabric. May ordered that firms must be named on a public register if more than 20pc of their shareholders complained about pay.

Blue-chip companies on the list include Unilever, led by Dutch chief executive Paul Polman, 62, who has said he is ‘embarrassed’ at how much he earns and that he would work at the company for free.

He received a £10.5m package last year, with the approval of shareholders. But the company is facing a backlash from investors over its pay plans for the future. More than a third voted against the remuneration policy because it could yield large pay rises and bonuses over the coming years.

The biggest revolt was at Royal Mail, where more than 70pc voted against its pay report. Shares are down by around 30pc this month after it issued a profit warning.

Moya Greene, who stepped down as chief executive at the start of the year, received pay of £1.8m for 2017 but was also given a golden goodbye worth £914,000, plus a series of guaranteed and performance-linked share incentives. That adds up to around £4.4m. Shareholders were also upset at the amounts given to her successor, Rico Back.

He will receive a basic salary 17pc higher than Greene at £640,000, as well as a £6m payment to buy out his package from his previous employer, a Royal Mail subsidiary.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: ‘It looks terrible to ordinary workers who have endured meagre pay growth for over a decade.’

The system allows firms to persist with huge pay packets in defiance of investors, who have very limited powers of veto.

Shareholders can express their anger by voting at the yearly investor meeting. However, this vote is not binding – and it is retrospective.

Investors are given a separate vote on a company’s remuneration policy which sets out its proposals on how it will reward its top brass in the future. This vote is binding – but only happens every three years.

Some protests have already attracted publicity, including the row over the £47m paid last year to Jeff Fairburn, chief executive of builder Persimmon and more than £42m to Simon Peckham, boss of corporate raider Melrose.

Others slipped by with less notice, including rewards at gambling giant GVC Group, which were slammed as ‘excessive’ and ‘exceptionally disproportionate’ by advisory firm Glass Lewis. The £18m paid to chief executive Kenneth Alexander this year provoked a substantial protest, with nearly 44pc voting against the pay report.

Another unnoticed revolt was at British American Tobacco where almost a quarter of shareholders rejected the £11.4m pay and bonus package handed to departing boss Nicandro Durante, 62, for 2017.

Lloyds Banking Group suffered a protest over Horta-Osorio’s 2017 pay, which was £6.4m – 95 times what the average employee makes. The financier has made more than £45m in pay, bonuses and incentives since he took over at the bailed-out bank in 2011.

Tory MP Robert Halfon said: ‘All these pay levels are obscene. It’s a gift to Jeremy Corbyn’s arguments about the excesses of capitalism and corporate greed. If Conservatives are to have some chance of getting a proper working majority again, we have got to deal with it.’

A dozen bosses were paid more than £10m in 2017 but not all suffered enough disapproval from shareholders to place them on the list of shame because most investors deemed them to have done a good enough job.

They include Rob Perrins, 53, boss of Berkeley Homes, who made nearly £28m, and Jeremy Darroch, 56, of Sky, who took home more than £16m.