Fatcats at two in three of Britain’s biggest firms get pension payments worth at least a quarter of their huge salaries, a Mirror probe has found.
The massive payments flout guidelines meant to curb such deals, often worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
The Investment Association, which set out the guidelines, has issued its first “amber” alert after Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed boss Ross McEwan gets a cash pension allowance worth 35% of his salary, or £350,000 a year.
Mr McEwan’s total pay and perks package last year at the bailed-out bank was £3.6million including bonuses.
New chief finance officer Katie Murray has pension payments worth 10% of salary, in line with the bank’s workforce.
RBS said it was reviewing its boardroom plans next year.
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Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, was paid £460,000 for his pension last year, or 40% of his salary.
The bank said it will fall to 20% this year. It said new directors would get 10%.
AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot got £375,000 pension payments last year, or 30% of his salary of £1.2million. His total package was £11.3million.
The company is capping pension payments for new executives. Willie Walsh, boss of British Airways parent company International Consolidated Airlines, got £213,000 towards his retirement, on top of a £850,000 salary.
And Stephen Hester, boss of More Than insurance giant RSA, was still getting a 30% pension perk.
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Mr Hester, who used to run RBS, enjoyed a payment of just over £300,000 payment last year, part of a £4million package.
RSA said it will drop to 24% next year.
Pensions expert Tom McPhail, of broker Hargreaves Lansdown, said of the huge payments: “There is no justification for the scale of these payments. These executives are already very highly paid.
“It’s astonishing this has been seen as normal for so long.”
Andrew Ninian, from the Investment Association, said: “Shareholders have been clear that they expect pension payments for executive directors to be aligned with the majority of the workforce.
“Is it fair that an executive director gets four or five times the pension contribution that their workers get? Shareholders don’t think so.”
- More than 100,000 company directors over the age of 66 are still running their firms, said business advisers BDO LLP.
