Payday: Three former bosses of takeover specialist Melrose have shared more than £330m
Three former bosses at takeover specialist Melrose have shared a bonus pot worth more than £330m, the Mail on Sunday revealed.
Co-founders Simon Peckham and Chris Miller and former finance director Geoffrey Martin were understood to be the biggest winners when the 2020 incentive scheme was paid out yesterday.
The huge share-based awards, totaling £334m, were triggered after a sharp rise in the value of FTSE 100 shares since the scheme was introduced four years ago.
Melrose was transformed by the controversial £8bn takeover in 2018 of engineer GKN, which was subsequently dissolved and led to the loss of hundreds of jobs.
Peckham, Miller and Martin all left within the past year.
They were expected to have received almost half of the bonus bonanza and the rest to be divided among other Melrose executives.
The company said yesterday that it had paid a total of £157 million in cash to HMRC to meet tax obligations arising from the bonus fund, and that shares worth £177 million were handed over to recipients.
The 2020 scheme gave Melrose’s 21 top directors and senior staff shares worth 7.5 per cent of market value over four years, a period during which it has more than doubled to £8bn.