Tim Steiner, the co-founder and chief executive of Ocado PLC (LON:OCDO), bagged £58.7mln in bonuses and salary last year even though the online grocery group racked up a loss of £214mln.
Most of the whopping payday came courtesy of Ocado’s soaring share price, which has jumped to 1,255p from 258p over the last three years valuing the group now at just short of £9bn.
Former Goldman Sachs man Steiner received £54mln from share incentives alongside £4.7mln in salary and bonuses for the year just ended.
The share incentive plan was based on the Ocado share price outperforming its rivals by more than 20% between 2014-2019.
Even though it is deep in the red currently, the City has valued Ocado as a fast-growing tech firm and has loved deals with huge grocery chains around the world and its plan for automated warehouses to fulfil orders.
Marks & Spencer starts a delivery service here in September while Kroger in Canada and Aeon in Japan have also signed up.
Steiner was not the only Ocado executive to benefit from the surging share price.
Duncan Tatton-Brown, CFO, and operations director Mark Richardson received £14mln each, while technology head Luke Jensen picked up £6mln.
Ocado’s results in the year to end November were hit by a huge fire at its warehouse in Andover.
Stripping out that impact underlying profits fell 27% to £43.3mln.
Revenues rose 10% to £1.76bn.