The 2009 FD Salary Survey

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The
2009 FD Salary Survey

Well, the wallet has taken a bit of a battering this year.
Blame the bonuses. For the second year in a row, FTSE-100 finance directors’
take-home pay has fallen – in fact, the total is now below a million pounds for
the first time since our 2006 survey. Our bonuses table reveals the cause of
some of the pain, listing just some of the FDs who have had no annual cash
bonus. Banks feature prominently, but not exclusively; Trevor Reid at mining
group Xstrata had an extra £1.5m last year, but zip this year, for example.

Most have the comfort of a sizeable increase in basic salary, however: the
FTSE-100 average is up an inflation-busting 8.2%. Kevin Hayes at Man Group tops
the list again this year, though he has had the benefit of putting in a full 12
months’ work this time. Paul Richardson at WPP saw the biggest increase in total
pay, thanks to a bonus that was a Ford Ka less than a million quid.

It is, if anything, an even more dramatic story in the FTSE-250, where basic
pay was more subdued, with just a 2.1% increase overall, but a near-30% drop in
bonus payouts, taking total pay down by a hurtful 12.2%. Investec’s Glynn Burger
remains top of the 250, even though his bonus fell by nearly £1m. The good news
story in this index is Seamus Keating at Logica who earned no bonus in our last
survey, but a hefty £654,000 this time round, propelling him from a mid-table
ranking to fourth position.

As last year, full details from our 13th annual FD Salary Survey – including
the FTSE-Aim-504 – are only available at www.financialdirector.co.uk/surveys.
And, also as last year, our data is provided by the corporate governance
research consultancy Manifest, so many thanks to them. The rankings, ratios and
other analysis are home-grown here at Financial Director.

As in previous years, the data represents basic salary, other benefits such
as cars, health insurance or relocation allowances and annual bonuses. Some of
these bonuses are voluntarily or compulsorily deferred, either by being switched
into shares or simply with time restrictions put in place to ensure continued
service. Long-term performance schemes, pension benefits and share options are
excluded from these tables.

Here’s a few more of our main findings:
* On the face of it, women FDs’ average pay has taken a real battering, though
the numbers take a hit in large measure because Helen Weir now has an
operational role at Lloyds Banking Group and Stacey Cartwright at Burberry
didn’t repeat her £510,000 bonus this time. There are still only two women FDs
in the FTSE-100 – and seven (one fewer than last year) in the FTSE-250.
* We aren’t supposed to be ageist these days, of course, but John Trotman, 31,
at Big Yellow Group remains the youngest FD in the FTSE-350. Last year he had a
seven-year advantage over the next-youngest FD, but this year Andrey Maruta, 33,
at Peter Hambro Mining, is in the same ballpark.
* Our High Flyers index – which divides total pay by age to give a
pay-per-year-of-age figure – is an ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek metric that
tries to spot youthful, well-paid high-fliers as well as the seniors who remain
emphatically at the top of the tree. Notables this year include Miguel Perry at
Eurasian Natural Resources (pay £1.2m, age 38, PPYOA £31,921) and Byron Grote at
BP (£2.1m, age 61, PPYOA £34,660). Top of the list is Man Group’s Kevin Hayes
who earns more than fifty grand for every one of his 49 years of age.