António Horta-Osório, who waived his bonus two months ago, has been given another one worth £3.3 million. Lloyds Banking Group said yesterday that its chief executive had been awarded shares worth 275 per cent of his salary under its long-term incentive plan.
The award is only just shy of the 300 per cent maximum usually allowed under the scheme, but Lloyds said Mr Horta-Osório would have to meet stretching targets before taking possession of the shares in three years’ time.
In January the Portuguese banker said that he was waiving his annual bonus, which could have been worth up to £2.38 million, in a gesture of solidarity with what he called “the tough financial circumstances that many people are facing”. But there was no mention in his statement of the long-term incentive plan.
The annual report, published yesterday, reveals that he was paid £1.765 million last year, including a base salary of £1.019 million and a pension contribution of £514,000.
Mr Horta-Osório was poached from Spain’s Santander in late 2010 with a signing-on package of about £12 million — partly to compensate him for the valuable pension benefits he was sacrificing with his defection.
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To qualify for all the shares in the incentive plan, he will have to hit targets linked to economic profit, shareholder return and other measures of success including customer satisfaction and the disposal of “mini-Lloyds” — the 600 branches of the bank being carved out and sold to Co-operative Group.
Truett Tate, the head of wholesale at Lloyds, who left last month, was paid £1.22 million last year, down from £1.75 million. Tim Tookey, the finance director, who has also just left and ran the bank when Mr Horta-Osório took sick leave for extreme insomnia, received £939,000, down from £1.58 million. Mark Fisher, the group operations director, yesterday received £266,000 of free shares — his reward for the integration of Lloyds with HBOS — and sold £885,000 worth in total after exercising options.
Lloyds is due to give an update on the sale, known as Project Verde, shortly amid reports that the Financial Services Authority is making heavy demands on both sides to ensure a smooth transition for the five million customers affected.
The bank is 41 per cent owned by taxpayers after they rescued both Lloyds and merger partner HBOS in 2008.