"The value of awards that vested this year is higher than last year ... The [remuneration] committee has determined that the maximum value of any LTIP [long term incentive plan] awards that vest for a participant in a year should be capped at £2.5m and, following discussions with the chief executive, this cap will be applied to his awards that have vested this year".
This was the general tone regarding the millionaire salaries of Next´s first executives, as stated the company in its annual report, recently released.
Chief Executive Simon Wolfson set example with a pay slip from to £1.5m in the last year from £1.8m the previous year. Wolfson, who has headed one of the few retailers to defy the high street gloom, had been in line for more than £3.1m in shares via the LTIP scheme for his work during the years 2008 and 2009, reported ‘The Guardian’.
Wolfson received a basic salary of £697,000 in the year to April 2012 with a bonus of £753,000 (compared to last year´s bonus, that sum up to £1m), the retailer’s annual report revealed.
Chairman John Barton’s pay rose from £225,000 in 2010/11 to £250,000 in 2011/12. Group product director Christos Angelides saw his pay slip from £1m last year to £900,000 this year, including a £364,000 bonus. In the same line, group finance director David Keens’ pay fell from £948,000 last year to £916,000 while group property Andrew Varley’s pay fell from £746,000 in 2011 to £674,000 in 2012.
The British retailer also changed its share matching scheme to avoid executives spend their entire cash bonus buying shares. Now, this has been capped between £50,000 and £125,000. Also, the company will now only give executives one share, instead of two, for every share acquired, while performance thresholds have
increased, the company explained.
