Berkeley pays bosses £60m
Multi-Millionaire property entrepreneur Tony Pidgley and three of his fellow directors at housebuilder Berkeley Group are getting a £60m pay-out, it has emerged.
Pidgley and the three other members of the management team will net around 7 per cent of the company, which is valued at around £770m.
The pay-outs come at a time when the housebuilding sector is experiencing its toughest market conditions for many years. The collapse of the mortgage market and plummeting house prices has left many of Berkeley’s rivals such as Taylor Wimpey and Barratt trying to shore up their balance sheets or renegotiate banking covenants.
Under the special remuneration package, which is subject to shareholder approval at the firm’s annual meeting in September, Pidgley will get £31m of shares, his finance director, Rob Perrins, will receive £12m and two other directors, Tony Carey and Greg Fry, will pocket £9m and £6m each.
It is thought this is the largest ever share pay-out at a listed housebuilder. In 2004 shareholders and the management agreed to a ‘scheme of arrangement’ where the company agreed to focus on being an urban regeneration specialist on London brownfield sites instead of a volume housebuilder.
It was agreed that the company would hand back £12m over a six-year period to shareholders. Investors have already received £9m of handbacks but a deal was reached where the final £3m would be deferred and the cash used to buy cheap land.
