Building society boss paid £1.1million for ONE DAY of work

When Stuart Haire joined Skipton, one of the country’s largest construction associations, on New Year’s Eve last year, he said he was “extremely excited and humbled” to become the CEO.

What he or the mortgage bank, owned by his clients, has NOT revealed is that for his only working day in 2022 – Saturday 31 December – he received compensation of £1,151,000. The equivalent of £143,875 an hour, assuming he worked eight hours a day. An almighty financial jackpot, however you spin the wheel.

Haire’s pay is the most outlandish revealed by an exclusive survey of construction CEO pay conducted last week by The Mail on Sunday. We examined the latest report and accounts from all 43 associations that collectively manage assets in excess of £500 billion and look after the savings of more than 22 million customers.

The most important data can be found in the table below. The year-ends run from the end of January 2022 (Scots) to the end of December 2022.

While many of these longstanding institutions do a great job of supporting local communities and paying savings rates higher than big banks, there are far too many executives in their boardrooms. According to our analysis:

• Twenty-five of the 30 associations with the end of December 2022 paid their bosses a bonus for their work in 2022;
• Bonuses ranged from a modest £7,157 collected by Penrith’s boss to the £408,000 paid to Yorkshire chief, who was CEO for just over half of the year;
• The total compensation received by these 30 bosses ranged from £1,151,000 received by Skipton’s Haire to £55,000 received by Bucks’ new boss for four months’ work. Compensation includes salary, bonuses and benefits such as pensions and cars. And in some cases, such as Skipton’s Haire, the 2022 pay included compensation for losing bonuses from a former employer;
• In only one case – the Principality – of the 30 associations with a December 31 year end, a boss saw his total salary fall in 2022 (another saw his remuneration fall in the year to April 2022);
• Seven out of 30 bosses will receive double-digit pay raises for their work by 2022;
• Over the course of 2022, most mortgage banks saw a sharp increase in profits with a sharp increase in the net income (the net margin) they received from customers. This is the difference in the interest payments that building funds receive from mortgage borrowers and pay to savers.

Although Stuart Haire was announced as 150-year-old Skipton’s boss at the end of June last year, he only took over on the last day of 2022. salary’.

The remainder, as explained in the footnotes, consists of compensation for rewards he forfeited as a result of leaving his previous employer HSBC. He joined HSBC in 2017 and became Head of Wealth and Personal Banking in 2020. Of the £1,148,000 ‘compensation’ Skipton paid to Haire, £345,000 represents the value of the ‘bonus opportunity’ in 2022 that he lost by quitting with HSBC. The remainder – £802,686 – represents the value of forfeited ‘HSBC Deferred Cash and Equity Rewards’.

Alan Debenham, founder of the Building Societies Members Association, says that while societies like Skipton are keen to promote their mutual values ​​- which are owned by members (clients, not shareholders) – reciprocity doesn’t extend into the boardroom.

He says: ‘Too many societies, such as Skipton, justify eye-watering executive pay by pointing to the financial rewards bank executives receive. That is not true. It is time for a renaissance in the membership focus of building associations, with rewards going into the pockets of savers rather than managers.”

While Skipton – the country’s fourth largest after Nationwide, Coventry and Yorkshire – says in its accounts it was paying depositors a ‘fair’ rate in 2022, the minimum it paid into a floating rate account (1.75 percent) only half of that amount. of the base rate of the banks at the end of the year.

Indeed, the association saw net interest income rise from £296.7m to £424.4m, contributing to a 9.9 per cent increase in overall profits to £298.8m.

On Friday, Skipton said that while Haire’s awards of £1,148,000 counted towards his 2022 compensation, they represented “deferred payments longer than five years”.

It added: ‘Remuneration is set by a remuneration committee composed of independent non-executive directors and supported by outside professional advisers.

“The remuneration of all Executive Directors is benchmarked against the market to ensure it is appropriate in comparison to our competitors, and sufficient to attract and retain people with the skills and capabilities required to manage the complex and diversified Skipton business. Group, including the UK’s largest estate agency.’

The Mail on Sunday asked Coventry, Yorkshire, Leeds and Newcastle to defend the reward paid to their respective bosses (£967,000, £965,000, £752,000 and £730,000).

Coventry said: ‘To be one of the best providers of mortgages and savings in the UK, we need the best people to deliver the services, value and security our members expect. And whether it’s a customer service representative, an IT developer or the general manager, we benchmark our roles against similar organizations to attract and retain the talented people we need.

“Under the leadership of Steve Hughes, we quickly raised savings rates and continued to offer above-market interest rates, resulting in £230 million in additional interest for members.”

Yorkshire said the fee paid to Alasdair Lenman was in line with the association’s aim of maintaining business success. It said its savings rate consistently beat the market average last year — by 0.56 percent.

Newcastle boss Andrew Haigh was given an inflation-boosting hike of nearly 24 percent in 2022. The association said the increase was partly explained by an independent review of executives’ pay, “bringing them more in line with peers in the industry and the wider market.”

Leeds said bonuses for staff, including directors, were “linked to the successful achievement of business and personal objectives”. It also pointed out that at last year’s annual general meeting, more than 92 percent of voting members gave their thumbs up to executive pay.

Members have the right to vote on executive compensation in 2022 at AGMs, many of which will be held this month. Voting can be done online or in person. Nationwide’s 2023 accounts will be released next month. All eyes will be on new boss Debbie Crosbie’s reward.