CEOs receive continued pay freeze

Two in five FTSE 100 CEOs received a salary freeze this year, according to PwC’s early season review of executive pay trends. This is broadly consistent with the level of salary freezes last year.

The preliminary data, which looks at the first 47 FTSE 100 Remuneration Reports for 2016, shows continued restraint in salary increases for CEOs and CFOs, with the overall median salary increase at just 2% of salary (same as the prior year).

The total single figure pay delivered to CEOs (which comprises salary, bonus, long term incentives and pension) also remained broadly flat, increasing by just 1% for 2015.

Fiona Camenzuli, Reward and Employment partner at PwC, said:

“Remuneration committees are continuing to make tougher judgements on pay outcomes and coupled with greater scrutiny of performance targets, requirements to hold shares for longer and malus and clawback provisions, mean executive pay is now harder to earn than in the past.”

64% of companies in the sample provide full disclosure (threshold to maximum targets) for financial measures in the annual bonus and 95% provide at least some detail on targets set. This responds to the Investment Association and Institutional Shareholder Services guidance on retrospective disclosure of bonus targets.

Fiona Camenzuli, added:

“Shareholders expect total payouts for the year to be a fair reflection of overall performance and greater transparency. The improvement in the quality of bonus target disclosure has been a triumph of collective shareholder action – the result is a definitive move to a market norm of full retrospective target disclosure to enable investors to assess the toughness of targets.”

 

ENDS

Notes for Editor:

1. All year-on-year comparisons are based on the same sample of companies and is based only on FTSE100 companies with disclosed remuneration reports for year ends on or after 30 September 2015 up to 29 March 2016.
2. PwC’s full Executive Pay Survey of FTSE 100 companies will be published in June 2016.
3. For interviews and more information please contact Nicola Thorogood, [email protected] / 02078046007