The chairman of John Lewis Partnership was given a 3% rise in basic pay last year, helping boost his total pay to £1.53m despite a drop in his annual bonus.
Charlie Mayfield’s basic wage rose to £941,000, 66 times the average pay received by non-managers within the partnership. His pension supplement rose to £470,000, from £466,000 a year before, while other benefits stayed level at £14,000, offsetting a drop in his annual bonusfrom £136,000 to £104,000.
The annual bonus for John Lewis staff, known as “partners” because they collectively own the group, fell to a 12-year low of 11% of salary this year after profits at the group’s Waitrose supermarket chain dived. Last year was a very competative one for UK grocers. Group profits excluding tax, the bonus and one-off items dropped by 9% to £342.7m. In 2014 staff received a 15% bonus.
Two other executives – likely to be the Waitrose boss, Mark Price, and John Lewis’s department stores head, Andy Street – received more than £1.2m in pay including bonuses.
In his statement to John Lewis partners, Mayfield said he expected returns from the supermarkets to be “materially lower for a period of time”. But he said Waitrose had improved its position in recent years and “we will continue to defend that hard-won position during this period of change in the grocery sector”.
