Nationwide boss Garner leaves with £954,000 bonus

THE chief executive of Nationwide Building Society took home a bumper bonus of nearly £1million before stepping down this month.

Joe Garner, the boss of the country’s largest building society, saw his overall remuneration jump 71 per cent last year to £2.1million.

The 52-year-old left the mutuallyowned business just over a week ago after six years at the helm, but not before earning a package for the year to this April that included a £954,000 performance bonus.

The reward is bound to antagonise many of the society’s 11 million savers, who have received a pittance in interest in the past year.

Nationwide has raised rates, but still pays just 0.11 per cent a year on some instant access accounts. Since the Bank of England started to increase its base rate in December – it is currently 1 per cent – The Mail on Sunday has campaigned for banks and building societies to ‘Give Savers A Rate Rise’. Under Garner, Nationwide has thrived with profit for the past year nearly doubling to £1.6billion and assets growing to £272billion. It has also just committed to keep open until at least 2024 a minimum of one branch in all cities and towns where it has a high street presence. This year, Nationwide has announced just ten branch closures while the big banks have confirmed 275 in total.

That will be welcomed by many customers who feared that, under new boss Debbie Crosbie, the society’s 625-strong network was under severe threat. In her last job at TSB she culled hundreds of branches. Crosbie took over at Nationwide on June 2, becoming the society’s first female boss in its 175-year history.

Garner won plaudits early on in the pandemic for quickly agreeing to take a pay cut in light of potential hardship faced by customers and staff. It meant his remuneration fell from £2.4million in the year ending April 2019 to £1.3million in the year ending April 2020, then to £1.2million the following year.

The society’s 16million members – savers and borrowers – have a chance to vote against the directors’ remuneration at next month’s annual general meeting. But as with all building society votes on executive pay, few members tend to register their disapproval.

Nationwide’s finance chief Chris Rhodes also saw his remuneration rise – by 44 per cent to £1.4million.

Nationwide said: ‘Garner’s pay rise reflects a reduction in the last two years. We need to compete to attract talent to ensure the longterm success of a society of this size. We’ve always balanced how we reward people with our values as a member-owned organisation.’

SOME 16 million members of Nationwide will have the opportunity to vote at the building society’s annual general meeting next month. I urge members to do so. It’s your society, have your say.

Members should have just received voting packs, together with a summary of the society’s 2022 accounts. These financial results are impressive whichever way you dissect them.

Profits are up from £823 million to nearly £1.6billion and assets are growing – £272billion at April 4 this year. It’s a mutual in rude good health and by far the biggest challenger to the major high street banks.

Whether some of these profits should have been directed into the pockets of savers through higher interest rates is an issue I am sure will get raised at the AGM (for the first time, members will be able to participate online).

Certainly, our Give Savers A Rate Rise campaign has provoked angry comments from Nationwide savers who believe they are being short-changed.

In light of a rash of bank branch closures this year, it is heartening to know Nationwide is still passionate about its 625strong branch network.

A few days ago, it confirmed the society would not abandon any town or city in which it has a branch until at least 2024. Reassuring news, although it won’t stop it closing branches in locations where it has more than one outlet.

Analysis of the 285 branch closures announced this year by banks and building societies – 14 confirmed by Barclays a few days ago – shows that Nationwide is shutting ten.

As part of the Nationwide AGM vote, members will be asked to approve the directors’ 2022 remuneration. I am sure some eyebrows will be raised at the fact that recently departed chief executive Joe Garner received £2.1million – £954,000 of it performance related.

In the previous two financial years, Garner’s remuneration was much lower at £1.2million

(2021) and £1.3million (2020), a result of his decision to forgo most of his performance pay in response to lockdowns and the pandemic. In 2019, his financial package was just short of £2.4 million.

Of course, Nationwide will argue that Garner’s remuneration is nowhere near that received by the bosses of the big banks, but that’s a disingenuous argument.

Nationwide is a mutual whose whole modus operandi is built around serving the financial interests of members. It’s not a profit obsessed bank where boardroom greed is endemic.

As I said, if your savings or home loan are with Nationwide, use your AGM vote. Let them know you care about how it is run.

I AM sure many Woodford Equity Income investors would have been angry last week to see our picture of failed fund manager Neil Woodford out enjoying himself in Salcombe, Devon, where he has a £6.3 million luxury holiday home.

While Woodford does not seem to have a care in the world, the prospects for his investors get grimmer by the day.

Last week, cancer treatment firm Rutherford Health – one of the few companies that the remaining rump of Equity Income still holds – went belly up.

Surely, it is time for Woodford to be held to account by regulators for running his fund into the ground.

GOOD customer service is a rarity. But last week, shop assistant Denise at my local Marks & Spencer outlet in London’s Kensington delivered it in spades. What a star.

I had gone in to buy some jeans, a casual shirt, shoes and much needed new underwear. After she had rung the items through the till, she asked whether I had its loyalty card Sparks. I replied in the affirmative, adding that I had the app too.

‘It might be worth checking whether you have any offers on it,’ she said. I handed her my phone and to my amazement she said I was entitled to a 20 per cent discount. ‘It runs out soon as well,’ she added.

I was quite thrilled. A saving of some £30. All because a shop assistant was prepared to bat for the customer.

Denise, you are a star. Flying the flag for a great British brand where customer service remains at its heart.