FTSE 100 chiefs on up to 260 times more than staff

Hitting the headlines: CRH boss Albert Manifold was paid £11.9m last year

Some of Britain’s best-known companies are paying their bosses up to 260 times more than their typical workers, research shows.

They include supermarket giants Sainsbury’s and Tesco, oil behemoth BP and cut-price retailer B&M.

The news will come as a shock to many facing higher food and fuel bills, which are rising faster than average pay rises.

Analysis by The Mail on Sunday found the most unequal company in the FTSE 100 index of leading firms is construction group CRH, owner of Tarmac.

Chief executive Albert Manifold was paid £11.9million last year – 259 times more than CRH’s average worker in the UK.

The firm made headlines this year when it revealed plans to move its main listing from London to the US, where valuations are higher and attitudes to executive pay more relaxed.

A typical FTSE 100 boss was paid £3.4million last year – 103 times the average full-time worker’s earnings of £33,000 – according to the High Pay Centre, which monitors boardroom pay.

But in the US the gap between chief executive and typical worker pay is far larger, with S&P 500 chief executives making £13million last year – 272 times more than their workers on average. The growing pay gulf means top bosses now make more in the first four days of the year than their workers earn over an entire twelve months.

It deals a blow to attempts by former PM Theresa May to tame ‘fatcat’ pay by forcing companies to disclose more information about their pay ratios. 

In 2017, she described the behaviour of some bosses as ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’ in an article for The Mail on Sunday. 

She launched a public register to name and shame firms where significant numbers of shareholders said boardroom pay was too high. The companies mentioned have been contacted for comment.

Sainsbury’s said: ‘We’ve prioritised supporting our colleagues and have made a record investment, committing £225 million over the last year in increasing retail hourly pay and enhancing other benefits.’

Calls by London Stock Exchange boss Julia Hoggett for the leaders of UK companies to be paid in line with US peers were dismissed as ‘a bit deluded’ by the High Pay Centre think-tank.

Stephen Schwarzman, head of private equity firm Blackstone, which owns extensive assets in the UK, was the best paid US boss last year on £198million.

Unions and some politicians say lavish executive pay contrasts with stalling real wages for millions of workers.

Tory MP and former minister Andrew Percy said that company bosses had ‘every right to earn a fair wage’ but shouldn’t ‘act like vultures’ during a cost of living crisis.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk