Sutherland’s fury amid Co-op pay storm
CO-OP Group chief executive Euan Sutherland has hit out at “disaffected people” within the organisation after details of his £3.6m pay packet were leaked.
In a Facebook post he said such actions were designed to “undermine me personally, my team and the rest of the group board” at a time when the group needs “professionalism and loyalty”.
Information handed to The Observer has revealed a £12m pot of pay and bonuses for the Co-op’s top eight executives, compared to £6m for 13 in the top team last year.
According to the leak, Mr Sutherland will receive a base salary of £1.5m and a bonus of £1.5m, regardless of performance. A “golden hello” payment to compensate him for leaving his previous employer Kingfisher takes the total to £3.6m. His predecessor Peter Marks earned £1.3m last year.
The increase in executive pay is controversial because the Co-op’s banking arm nearly collapsed last year and the group is expected to shed around 5,000 jobs this year, and report losses of around £2bn.
Writing on the Co-op employees’ Facebook page, Mr Sutherland said: “We seem to have an individual, or individuals, determined to undermine me personally, my team and the rest of the group board regardless of the uncertainty and disruption this causes to our 90,000 colleagues and our supportive members.”
He added: “I wish I could promise you that this kind of occurrence will not happen again. You deserve to hear information in a proper, orderly and considered fashion. But we appear to have disaffected people who are determined to make life difficult and embarrassing for The Co-operative at a time when what we need most are professionalism and loyalty to the business.”
The pay details were criticised by Labour’s Chris Leslie, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, who told Sky News: “I believe in mutuality, I believe in the co-operative principle but I happen to think that Co-op should be acting differently. They recently put out a questionnaire to the public about their objectives, I didn’t see in that questionnaire anywhere anything about do you agree with extending high remuneration to senior executives so I have to say it’s a bit disappointing.”
Co-op Group chair Ursula Lidbetter said: “The remuneration packages of our executives are in the middle of a range of comparable companies. This represents an increase on the pay of their predecessors to reflect the greater commercial, management and turnaround experience they are bringing to bear. Euan and his team have already made a significant contribution to the group and we are confident that they will continue to do so.”
