Lloyds boss Osorio’s pay packet defended
A top executive at Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds has claimed chief executive Antonio Horta-osorio is a “winner” with “charisma” who deserves his controversial pension perks and pay deal.
Stuart Sinclair, chairman of the remuneration committee at Lloyds, told MPS that staff at the bank did not resent Horta-osorio’s pay deal, which last year saw him pick up £6.27 million, which included a pension contribution of 33 per cent. This compares with an average employee pension contribution of 13 per cent.
When questioned over whether Horta-osorio’s pension arrangements had caused “huge trouble” in the bank, Sinclair told the Work and Pensions Committee: “People like a winner.
“When I go out to see people who are on £22,000, £30,000, £40,000, they see Antonio as a winner, because he brought this bank back from the brink.
“People regard that as a big achievement and there’s a charisma around Antonio which actually means a lot of people say ‘good luck to him’.”
But Frank Field, chairman of the House of Commons select committee, hit back, saying Horta-osorio “certainly is a winner”.
Field took Horta-osorio to task during the hearing on executive pensions, accusing the Lloyds boss of “sticking to these absurd pension arrangements which you have enforced when other people have surrendered theirs”.
Horta-osorio sought to defend his pay deal as being in line with other bank bosses, but stopped short of pledging to cut his pension contribution further.