Micro Focus executive chairman Kevin Loosemore set for £24m payday | City A.M.

An executive chairman who has managed to hand shareholders average returns of 40 per cent every year is set to become the FTSE 100’s best-paid boss of 2017.

Kevin Loosemore, who has been at the helm of Britain’s biggest technology firm Micro Focus since 2011, will this week take home a bonus of £24m.

The bonus is part of a share award that vests following Micro Focus’ $1.2bn (£0.9bn) takeover of Attachmate in 2014.

Read more: Micro Focus shares surge on news of deal with HP Enterprise

Four top execs at Micro Focus will receive shares worth £60m. Loosemore’s award was contingent on delivering shareholders returns of over 100 per cent over the period. Since 2014 Micro Focus’ market capitalisation has jumped from £1.2bn to £11bn.

The acquisitive firm completed an $8.8bn merger with Hewlett Packard Enterprises last month, the arm of the former US giant that originally bought former FTSE 100 software developer Autonomy in 2011.

Micro Focus is the second best performing FTSE 100 stock over the last 10 years, pipped only by support services giant Bunzl.

Read more: This FTSE 100 firm’s shares have returned over 4,000 per cent since 2007