Aston Martin flies into a storm over fat cat perks
Revelation that CEO’s private jet cost carmaker £1.3million fuels backlash over executive greed
ASTON Martin’s ousted boss was handed £1.3million to commute weekly from Italy to the Midlands by private jet, fuelling the row over boardroom excess’
More details about Amedeo Felisa’s unusual arrangements to get to the luxury car maker’s base in Gaydon, Warwickshire emerged this week.
It comes just days after a major revolt at AstraZeneca where over a third of shareholders opposed a £19 million pay deal for chief executive Pascal Soriot.
In the coming weeks two other FTSE100 companies – Smith & Nephew and the London Stock Exchange Group – are also braced for their shareholders to rebel over sky-high pay packages.
Bosses increasingly claim executive pay at top UK companies is low by international standards and is harming London’s position as a major financial centre.
Leading City figures such as London Stock Exchange (LSE) boss Julia Hoggett have called for a ‘constructive discussion’ around boardroom pay.
She said Britain needs to attract and keep top talent to compete with US and European rivals.
Rupert Soames, the new president of the CBI business lobby group, is also chairman of medical devices maker Smith & Nephew.
In that capacity, he is busy lobbying shareholders to give chief executive Deepak Nath a huge pay rise at the annual meeting next month. He has dubbed many companies in the FTSE100 ‘Brilos’ – ‘British in Listing Only’ – because most of their revenues come from overseas.
The London Stock Exchange Group, which owns the exchange, is facing a showdown with its investors next week, when shareholders will vote on plans to boost chief executive David Schwimmer’s pay to a reported £13.2million, from £6.3million.
Several companies such as chipmaker Arm Holdings, plumbing giant Ferguson and Tarmac-owner CRH have moved their main listing to New York, partly because high levels of executive pay are more tolerated across the Atlantic.
Betting giant Flutter is among others planning to de-camp to Wall Street. Campaigners say there is little evidence that British-based bosses are underpaid relative to their peers.
Anthony Painter, policy director at the Chartered Management Institute, said ‘simply relying on a benchmarking exercise’ with other bosses just ‘seems to increase executive pay relentlessly’.
Aston Martin, whose shares have tanked since the company went public in 2018, is unusual because much of the chief executive’s pay is made up of perks, rather than bonuses based on performance. Felisa was paid £2.9 million last year, including a £1.3million travel allowance, as first reported by The Sun.
The company even paid the tax on the benefit, which was granted two years ago when Felisa joined the company, bringing with him a team of colleagues from Italian sports car-maker Ferrari.
They commuted weekly on a private jet from their homes in Italy to the company’s UK sites, latest accounts show.
The benefit, which was only agreed ‘after careful consideration’ by the board, had ‘the full
support’ of Aston Martin’s chairman Lawrence Stroll.
Felisa, 77, also received an annual £50,000 ‘location allowance’ to cover the cost of his board and lodge ‘while he was away from his home in Italy during the working week’. He was replaced last month by former Bentley chief Adrian Hallmark. It was the third change of leadership at the car maker favoured by 007 James Bond since Stroll took control four years ago.
‘Aston Martin is an example of a company that shouldn’t be listed on the stock market in the first place,’ said Tim Bush, of shareholder advisory group PIRC. ‘It’s been a disaster from beginning to end.’
Stroll is no stranger to using private jets. Aircraft owned by him recorded a combined 1,512 flights since the start of 2022, a recent investigation by The Guardian found. An Aston Martin spokesman said Felisa’s private flights were paid for because of ‘the efficiency advantages around valuable time saved, productive time working as individuals and a team, as well as privacy, flexibility, and convenience’.
The Mail on Sunday Fat Cat Files, an annual audit of pay and perks showered on FTSE 100 bosses, found that Britain’s top 100 boardroom chiefs took home an average £4.2 million last year as households struggled to make ends meet.
The five biggest earners pocketed £56million between them, led by AstraZeneca’s Soriot, who pocketed £15.3 million.