Vodafone boss Colao sees his remuneration rise to £2.7m
VODAFONE chief executive Vittorio Colao saw his remuneration rise 2.5 per cent to more than £2.7m last year.
His basic pay rose from £975,000 to £1m in 2010, with payments from his incentive scheme rising from £1.26m to £1.32m. For the current financial year, Colao’s base salary will rise 6.4 per cent to £1.11m. The total pay of Vodafone’s four top executives rose from £7.54m to £7.7m in 2010.
Colao has pursued a strategy of offloading non-core assets, announcing a string of multi-billion pound sales, including cashing in its £7bn stake in France’s SFR.
Vodafone said its guidance on operating profit for the coming year is between £11bn to £11.8bn, down from £11.8bn last year, taking into account the loss of profits from the SFR stake.
Free cash flow is expected to be between £6bn to £6.5bn, reflecting strong cash generation but taking a hit from lost dividends in SFR and China Mobile, of which it also sold out.
The firm also announced it will tweak its executive incentive package next year to give equal weight to service revenue and profit.
Meanwhile, Vodafone saw its stock tumble 4.4 per cent to 161.6p yesterday, possibly because a World Health Organisation (WHO) report claimed a potential link between mobile phone use and cancer.