What cost of living crisis? Bumper executive bonuses make a comeback
“If that had been our CEO, he would’ve been on the front pages with whiskers painted on him and labelled a greedy fat cat,” remarked the executive, chewing on a roasted scallop in a busy north London restaurant. The diner works at an energy supplier and has just seen the thumping £6.5m handed out to John Pettigrew, boss of National Grid, the privately owned national electricity operator.
Pettigrew’s job in charge of a low-profile, non-customer facing infrastructure business perhaps spared him from scrutiny. But it is AGM season, when executive pay deals are published and put to a vote by shareholders, and there will doubtless be others who become an emblem of corporate largesse as worker discontent deepens in the coming months.
To recap:inflation is at a 40-year high, fuel prices have repeatedly hit record levels and a global recession is a real threat. While the prime minister urges restraint on worker pay, warning of the dangers of a “wage price spiral”, at the top of the pyramid the bonuses are back.
Having shown restraint for two long pandemic years, the average pay of FTSE 100 bosses has sprung to pre-Covid levels. Chief executives were paid £3.62m on average in 2021, rebounding from £2.78m in 2020. Though top pay is still short of the £4.04m high seen in 2017, by July, when the annual meeting season closes, another round of increases will have been waved through.
In spring 2020, and again in 2021, many FTSE executives agreed to take a temporary salary cut, or forego bonuses – either as part of a cost-cutting drive or in solidarity with the public during uncertain times. With so much taxpayer cash helping keep businesses afloat, in the form of furlough wages, government-backed loans and business rates relief, most
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