First class delivery… for Royal Mail bosses: £15m top buyer
- Five consecutive CEOs shared a total of £15.2m
- This figure will rise to as much as £22.6 million by the time the takeover is completed.
- Critics said the public would be ‘outraged’ at huge sums given the poor level of service
The Mail today reveals the height of salaries received by Royal Mail bosses in the years leading up to Daniel Kretinsky’s proposed takeover.
According to an analysis by this newspaper, five successive CEOs have distributed £15.2m over the period between the supply group’s privatisation in 2013 and the end of its last financial year in March 2024.
This number will rise to as much as £22.6 million by the time the deal to sell Royal Mail owner International Distribution Services (IDS) for £3.6 billion to the billionaire known as the Czech Sphinx is completed .
Critics said the public would be “outraged” by the huge sums, given the poor level of service they received.
The revelations follow documents this week showing bankers, lawyers and other advisers working on the deal sharing a sum of £146 million.
Bumper pay: Moya Greene and Martin Seidenberg are two of the executives who have benefited from this
The IDS board – led by chairman Keith Williams – surprised the City and Westminster last month when it backed a £3.6bn bid from Kretinsky, which will see Royal Mail fall into foreign hands for the first time since it was founded by Henry VIII in 1516.
The proposed takeover – which still needs regulatory approval – comes just over a decade after Royal Mail was floated on the stock market in a major privatisation deal by the coalition government. However, the privatisation quickly turned sour as the company was hit by a collapse in letter-writing and damaging strikes.
Royal Mail has blamed its financial performance on delays in reforming the Universal Service Obligation, which requires nationwide delivery six days a week at a fixed price and is costing the company up to £675m a year. But unions claim the crisis has been caused by “mismanagement” at the top, leaving the company vulnerable to a foreign takeover.
Running Royal Mail has proven lucrative. The Mail can reveal that IDS chief executive Martin Seidenberg was paid £1.5m last year and could rake in a further £7.4m by the time the takeover is completed.
That includes up to £5.6m in potential share awards and the value of his stake in the company plus his salary and bonuses for this financial year. His predecessor Simon Thompson, who was boss for just two years, earned a total of £1.9 million. He followed in the footsteps of Rico Back, who also quit after a two-year period marked by constant battles with unions. He was paid almost £1.2 million plus £450,000 in lieu of notice but received no bonuses on his departure.
Stuart Simpson, who did the job on an interim basis after Back left and before Thompson took over, was paid £462,000. Canadian Moya Greene was appointed in 2010. Her tenure included the privatization of the postal service in 2013, after which she earned £8.7 million plus a pay-off of almost £1 million when she resigned.
Andrew Speke, from the think tank High Pay Centre, said: ‘Given the service Royal Mail provides to the public, most people would be furious to hear that such huge sums were being paid to failing bosses.’
How the top brass raked in £15m ahead of Czech Sphinx takeover – and there’s more in the post!