Pay: Thames Water directors share £1m bonus bonanza

Pay: Thames Water directors share £1m bonus bonanza

The three executive directors at Thames Water, Britain's biggest water company, shared almost £1m in bonuses last year.

The biggest payment has been made to David Owens, the chief executive, who got a bonus of almost £662,000 - more than four times his basic salary - for the year to the end of March, taking his overall remuneration package to almost £823,000.

The two other directors, Stephen Shine, chief operating officer, and Mark Braithwaite, chief financial officer, received bonuses of £192,600 and £130,700 respectively. Shine got a basic salary of £192,300 and Braithwaite £117,100.

In addition, the former finance director Simon Batey, who left the company at the end of August, was paid a bonus of £416,800 as well as a salary of £108,600.

The highest-paid director at Thames Water for the previous year was Jeremy England, who received £519,000.

A Thames spokeswoman said the latest salary and bonus packages were not directly comparable to previous payments to directors. Thames was sold in late 2006 by the German utility RWE to a consortium led by the Australian bank Macquarie. The spokeswoman said none of the three directors had been on the board under the previous regime and the new owners had brought in salary packages that were more directly linked to performance.

Owens, for example, is understood to receive a basic salary that is around a third less than his predecessor but.....continued below

Advertisement starts

---

---

Advertisement ends

potential bonus payments give him the opportunity to earn more.

The spokeswoman said the bonuses paid for last year reflected the strong improvement in the company's operating performance from near the bottom of the industry league table to a much higher position.

The company's financial performance had been strong, capital spending had increased and the programme of replacing London's Victorian-era water mains was accelerating, she said.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008