Severn Trent has doubled the size of a long-term reward scheme for its new chief executive to as much as £3.1m and he could receive significantly more than his predecessor, despite anger over water bosses’ pay.
The FTSE 100 water company said its long-term incentive plan (LTIP) would increase from 200% of new chief executive James Jesic’s base salary to 400%, according to changes revealed in the company’s most recent annual report. Jesic could receive as much as £4.8m in a single year after salary, annual bonus, LTIP and benefits are counted.
Jesic’s theoretical maximum pay packet for a single year could reach £4.8m when including the salary, bonuses, benefits such as an electric car and a £15,000 “green travel allowance”, plus pension contributions. That would be significantly more than the £3.9m peak annual earnings for Garfield in 2022.
The utility, which serves 4.7 million customers around Bristol, the Midlands and east Wales, also removed an environmental performance measure from the criteria determining future bonuses. The company said it was justified in watering down the measure because it “could be heavily influenced by factors outside management’s control, reducing its effectiveness within the bonus structure”. It replaced it with a customer service metric, while some different environmental measures also remained.
