Lloyds stokes fresh controversy over new finance director’s pay
02 Mar 2012
Days following the end of the banking results season, Lloyds Banking Group has reignited the banking bosses' payouts controversy by hiring a finance director on a £5.9 million package.
The government-backed bank, which lost £3.5 billion in 2011, has hired away George Culmer from the insurer Royal & Sun Alliance at an annual salary of £720,000 plus the prospect of an annual bonus of up to £1.44 million. Culmer will also get a further share-based "long-term incentive scheme" bonus of up to £1.62 million.
Culmer would also be getting £1.9 million in shares as a "golden hello" by way of compensation for shares and bonuses he would forego through leaving RSA.
This works out to a total of a maximum of £5.9 million, depending his own and Lloyds' corporate performance.
According to the bank, the metrics used to assess bonuses were "stretching", but they were still a huge upgrade over what Culmer was drawing at RSA.
Apart from the "golden hello", he could expect to make a maximum of £2.4 million at the insurer, as against £4 million at Lloyds, so his new package represented an effective pay rise of 67 per cent.