Co-Operative Group chief executive Richard Pennycook asks board for salary and pay cut
Update: This has now been confirmed by the group – all the details are here.
Co-Operative Group's chief executive has asked his fellow board members for a pay cut.
Richard Pennycook is understood to have requested his basic salary, currently £1.25m, be reduced by a third. He has also asked for his total compensation to be cut by more than 50 per cent.
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Sky News first reported that Pennycook told colleagues a pay cut was “the right thing to do for the business”.
The request is expected to be revealed tomorrow morning along with Co-Op's annual results.
With a base salary of £1.25m, Pennycook was paid a total of £2.515m in 2014, including bonus and pension contributions.
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An insider told Sky News he was paid £3m last year because of a larger annual bonus.
Pennycook took over as chief executive of Co-Op Group in 2014 following the resignation of Euan Sutherland.
In 2013, the Co-Op bank nearly collapsed when a £1.5bn hole in its capital was discovered following losses from problem real estate loans.
The Co-Op Group is expected to report a profit for 2015 tomorrow, with a source saying the results will show the company is “very firmly beyond the rescue stage”.