US listing means Cable will be unable to curtail Aon, Marsh and Willis pay packages
Last year Willis chairman and chief executive Joe Plumeri received a pay package on a par with the whole of the Aviva’s board remuneration, Insurance Times can reveal.
The Aviva board was remunerated £7.75m – around $12.4m. Plumeri was compensated a total of $12.1m last year, according to US Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
However, even that sum is dwarfed by Aon chief executive Greg Case, who netted $20m last year.
Aviva’s comparatively small board remuneration comes despite the fact that Aviva makes profits greater than Willis, Aon and Marsh combined
In further context, Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy took home a pay packet of £5.1m last year ($8.1m), a long way short of what Case and Plumeri are earning, despite Tesco’s position as the UK’s largest retailer and one of the biggest supermarkets in the world.
Out of Cable’s reach
Because Willis, Aon and Marsh are listed in the USA, their chief executives’ salary packages will fall outside the control of business secretary Vince Cable’s attempts to curtail boardroom pay.
Cable has won backing from the government and the ABI to require that companies show more transparency over boardroom pay, and to ensure that directors are rewarded for improved performance rather than average or falling results.
Last week, Insurance Times revealed that Willis boosted its directors pay by nearly a quarter during the two-year period that general staff wages were frozen.
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