Tom Glocer gets "substantially more" than others - report

Glocer enjoyed an annual bonus payout of $3.03 million, or 212 per cent of his basic salary, for 2008. “The payout for the American lawyer, who sold London-based Reuters to Canadian rival Thomson in April last year, comes on top of a $757,397 payment to cover the personal cost of relocating from London to New York and a £27m takeover windfall,” The Guardian said.

Reporting a survey of management pay by Income Data Services (IDS), part of Thomson Reuters, it said UK directors' annual bonuses, when expressed as a proportion of basic salaries, have fallen by a quarter in the 12 months to April, down from 40 per cent of basic to 30 per cent. Over the same period, the FTSE 100 fell 38 per cent.

The survey does not take into account that in some cases board directors are successfully negotiating an increase in their basic salaries, mitigating the net impact on their take-home pay of falling performance bonuses, The Guardian said.

Revised deals are being secured despite unprecedented shareholder efforts to curb what they see as unacceptable revisions to boardroom pay deals.

Managers immediately below board level saw the steepest decline in their bonus, according to the IDS survey. This group had enjoyed bonus awards for the year to April 2008 worth 20 per cent of their basic salary; that has fallen to 13 per cent.

Meanwhile, middle and junior management saw their bonuses pared back from 10 per cent of basic salary to 7.8 per cent on average. Technical and professional staff experienced a lesser reduction in bonus, dropping from 8 per cent to 5.5 per cent. ■