Trinity Mirror awarded chief £1.8m last year
TRINITY Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey was awarded almost £1.8m worth of cash and shares in 2011 despite leading the newspaper publishing company to a 40 per cent drop in profits last year.
Bailey, who has been chief executive since February 2003, took home a base salary of £750,000 in 2011.
In the same year Trinity Mirror’s operating profit was slashed by 33 per cent to £92.4m, while its pre-tax profits fell 40 per cent from £123.7m to £74.4m.
The publisher of the Daily Mirror and the People more than halved Bailey’s bonus from £660,000 to £248,000, but the Trinity Mirror boss upped her share-based payments.
Bailey was awarded 761,905 performance shares, up from 600,901 the year before. She also received 502,857 deferred shares – almost double the previous year’s allotment – which will vest in March 2014.
Based on Trinity Mirror’s current share price of 37.5p, the total share bundle is worth £474,285.
Added to a £248,000 pension contribution and £11,000 in benefits, Bailey’s remuneration last year came to £1.73m.
But Trinity Mirror said in future years Bailey’s bonus, including cash and shares, will be capped at 110 per cent of salary, compared to its 176 per cent current maximum.
Despite the publisher’s attempts to placate disgruntled investors by freezing executive salaries, some of Trinity Mirror’s major shareholders were unimpressed by Bailey’s pay packet.
Trinity Mirror’s shares, which have fallen 93 per cent in the last five years, closed at 37.5p.