Six Footsie chiefs share £32m payday

Six FTSE 100 bosses scooped a total of £31.8million in pay last year, despite the UK being in the grip of a cost of living crisis.

Amid a flurry of annual reports, the blue-chip businesses, including Unilever, Segro, Shell, Aviva, Rolls-Royce and Flutter, published documents revealing what their chief executives were paid.

The pay bonanza for some of Britain’s top bosses will raise eyebrows while families across the country are struggling to make ends meet as food and energy bills soar.

In the money: Ben van Beurden (pictured) received fixed pay of £2.2m during the year as well as a £2.6m bonus and £4.9m worth of share awards

Shell paid former boss Ben van Beurden £9.7million in his last year in charge after the oil and gas giant delivered record profits on the back of surging energy prices.

The 64-year-old stepped down at the end of 2022 and received fixed pay of £2.2million during the year as well as a £2.6million bonus and £4.9million worth of share awards linked to the company’s long-term incentive plan.

It means over his nine years in charge, van Beurden raked in over £86million and is due to receive another £700,000 this year for staying at Shell as an adviser for six months.

Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Dove soap maker Unilever paid outgoing chief Alan Jope £4.8million, a 10 per cent jump from a year earlier despite coming under fire for the firm’s poor performance. Last year’s bonanza takes his pay since taking the helm in January 2019 to £16.5million.

Jope is being replaced in July and is set to leave the business with shares broadly flat since he took over. 

Rolls-Royce’s former boss Warren East, who quit in December after seven and a half years in charge, scooped £3.8million before bowing out.

His final payout took his earnings since becoming chief executive of the aircraft engine maker to more than £20million.

Elsewhere warehouse giant Segro paid its chief executive David Sleath £3.9million, a dip from last year when he scooped £4.7million.

Insurer Aviva paid boss Amanda Blanc £5.5million, a jump from the £3million she was awarded a year earlier.

And gambling giant Flutter, owner of Paddy Power and Betfair, cut boss Peter Jackson’s pay almost in half. Despite the fall, he was still handed £4.1million last year.

Luke Hildyard of the High Pay Centre said companies should have ‘thought twice’ before handing out the huge pay packets during the cost of living crisis.

He said: ‘Multimillionaire chief executives making such massive windfall gains in the middle of a cost of living crisis, partly caused by a war that’s killed hundreds of thousands of people, is such a clear sign of an economy that needs major changes.’