Embattled BT boss misses £2m share bonus

BT boss Gavin Patterson will miss out on a £2 million share bonus after another torrid year for the telecoms giant.

More than 900,000 shares awarded to Patterson in 2015 are expected to lapse after BT missed performance targets.

It means Patterson’s total pay for the year to March 2018, to be released in the annual report this month, will be at the lower end of the scale again. He took home £1.3 million the previous year following a similar result.

Even after missing out on

those shares, Patterson is still sitting on more than £6 million in share options based on the current 217p share price.

Speculation is mounting that time is running out for Patterson, who has been chief executive for nearly five years, during which he has overseen an accounting scandal, thousands of job cuts and a recent share slump. BT’s annual report states that most

of Patterson’s share awards are likely to expire if he quits.

It says the company’s ‘default position’ is that options handed out as part of its incentive share plan or deferred bonus plan that have yet to bear fruit will lapse when a boss leaves, unless the pay committee decides he can keep them.

Last year, Patterson forfeited his bonus and gave up some options after BT was rocked by an accounting scandal in Italy at its Global Services arm.

Patterson has forked out

billions of pounds on football rights for its pay-TV channels and splashed £12.5 billion on buying mobile phone network EE in 2016, yet the share price continues to slide.

Last week, he unveiled 13,000 job cuts in a bid to slash costs. BT employs 106,000 people worldwide including 83,000 in the UK.

The turnaround plans failed to win over City investors as the shares fell 7 per cent on Thursday. BT declined to comment.