Lloyds Banking Group’s new boss will be paid up to £5.5m in annual pay and bonuses – about a fifth less than his predecessor.
The £5.5m is the maximum Charlie Nunn could receive in annual pay. The actual figure is dependent on targets being met.
Nunn, who was previously at HSBC where he was head of high street banking, replaces Antonio Horta-Osorio, who leaves the bank by the summer of 2021
His remuneration includes a £1.13m salary, a fixed bonus of £1.05m and longer-term bonuses and pension payments.
Pay and bonuses
The salaries of leading bankers in the UK have fallen over recent years because of mediocre share price performance, low profitability and criticism from some shareholders.
Horta-Osorio was paid £4.73m last year – down from the £6.54m he was paid a year earlier.
There is quite wide variation in banking chiefs’ remuneration: NatWest boss Alison Rose potentially is paid £4.26m a year, Jes Staley at Barclays £8.3m and HSBC chief Noel Quinn £9.9m.
As with Nunn, the final payout in these cases is likely to be lower.
It is considered within the sector that leading employees at Barclays and HSBC are paid more because those companies are more complex businesses, taking in investment banking and operations abroad.
Pay within the sector has attracted criticism from shareholders and campaigners in recent years. Many firms have imposed executive pay cuts during the coronavirus pandemic but it is not thought that these reductions will stick.
Luke Hildyard, executive director of the High Pay Centre think tank, told the BBC in relation to Nunn’s appointment: “Changes in key staff are an absolutely critical test of whether banks are serious about changing the culture of vast internal pay gaps between a handful of senior bankers at the top and the branch staff, cleaners, caterers, security workers and administrators who ensure the organisation can function.”
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“This is a real failure of that test. It really shouldn’t require a £6m pay package to attract someone to the job.”
