UK bank CEOs paid 120 times as much as average employee

LONDON – Reuters

The top bosses of Britain’s biggest banks are paid on average 120 times more than the median pay of their U.K. employees, bank documents have shown, as a new rule puts pay disparities at the country’s big businesses under sharper scrutiny.

Britain’s biggest domestic lender Lloyds Banking Group has the starkest pay difference, with Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio - the sector’s highest-earning boss in 2018 - on 169 times as much as the median paid employee on 37,058 pounds ($48,164), the company’s annual report showed on Feb. 20.

The gulf widens to 237 times when compared with staff in Lloyds’ lowest pay quartile, who received an average pay package of 26,490 pounds in 2018, compared with the 6.3 million pounds Horta-Osorio took home.

The banks made the disclosures alongside full-year results over the past fortnight, ahead of new reporting requirements coming into force next year that oblige firms to set out the ratio of CEO pay to a median UK employee and those in the lowest and upper pay quartiles.

Banking giant HSBC had the next largest pay disparity, with new chief executive John Flint pocketing 4.6 million pounds last year - 118 times as much as its median paid employee in Britain.

CEO to median employee pay ratios at rival FTSE 100 lenders Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays were not too far behind, at 97:1 and 96:1 respectively.

HRBS boss Ross McEwan made 3.6 million pounds, up from 3.5 million pounds, while Barclays chief Jes Staley was the lowest paid after earning 3.4 million pounds, down from 3.9 million pounds.