The boss of housebuilder Taylor Wimpey on Tuesday backed down over the controversial purchase of one of his own firm’s luxury flats after outrage over his £436,000 discount on the central London property.
Chief executive Pete Redfern was aiming to buy the £2.5 million flat in Wimpey’s Palace View scheme next to Lambeth Palace, which has views over the Houses of Parliament.
Redfern, who earned £3.2 million last year, was using a staff discount, which knocks 5% off the price of a property for the firm’s workers, up to the value of £100,000.
An internal audit of a softening London market also cut another £336,000 off the value of the flat, allowing him to buy an apartment originally valued at £2.48 million for just £2.04 million.
The purchase, first revealed by The Times, was labelled a “massive, unconditional and completely gratuitous bonus” by executive pay campaigners.
A company spokesman said: “We recognise the concerns that have been expressed in some quarters and the sensitivity of this matter and as a result, Mr Redfern has today taken the personal decision to withdraw from the planned purchase.”
The U-turn comes at a time of heightened sensitivity over profiteering and exorbitant pay in a sector which has been bolstered by the Help to Buy public subsidy scheme for house purchasers.
Rival Persimmon sparked fury last year after its former chief executive Jeff Fairburn landed a huge £75 million bonus, cut from an even bigger original £100 million bonanza. The firm recently posted £1 billion in profits for the first time but has been dogged by complaints over shoddy workmanship.
Taylor Wimpey was also caught up in a scandal dubbed the “PPI of the housebuilding industry” in 2017 after it had to set aside £130 million to address the problem of homebuyers who bought under contracts which doubled ground rents every decade, potentially saddling them with bills of thousands of pounds a year.
