Square Mile veteran Jan du Plessis can sleep easy tonight.
The former BT chair expressed his concerns for the City of London’s executive class this week, bemoaning the fact that they don’t get paid nearly as much as their US counterparts.
“The reality is that across the pond, you go to the US, and they are paid multiples of what people are paid here, stratospherically different levels, and they are being very successful. And no one seems to care,” said du Plessis.
According to du Plessis, meagre 90:1 ratios between low-paid workers and bosses are a core reason behind London’s lagging performance against the US capital markets.
He also took umbrage at the legal requirement for companies to publish ratios between bosses’ pay and the lowest-paid worker, or “yet another political tool to try to embarrass companies and the boards and their chief executives” in his words.
It must have come as music to his ears, then, to hear of Tesco boss Ken Murphy’s handsome £4.4mln yearly pay packet for the past year.
Finance chief Imran Nawaz, meanwhile, received a £3mln cheque, with both of their base salaries set to increase by 3% and 4% respectively in the year ahead, as reported by The Telegraph today.
Granted, Murphy’s 197:1 pay ratio against Tesco’s average employee is still below the 300:1 ratios often reported across the pond, but at least it’s a start!