Rolls-Royce CEO takes a dramatic pay cut despite soaring results

Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic has seen a dramatic pay cut of nearly £10m, despite delivering impressive results for the Derby-based company.

Erginbilgic’s pay dropped to £4.1m in the latest financial year, down from £13.6m the previous year.

It has been put down to the absence of a one-off £7.5m payment he received for lost earnings from a previous job and a reduction in his annual incentive pay, which fell from £4.6m to £2.5m.

The news comes as Rolls-Royce saw its share price reach an all-time high just last week (February 27) after posting an impressive set of 2024 results. 

At close of trading, shares in the Derby manufacturer were changing hands for over 728p – up over 15.4% on their opening price.

The hike saw the company’s marketing capitalisation rise to £61.9bn.

Erginbiligic said: “We are moving with pace and intensity” as results showed underlying profit jumped from £1.26bn to £2.29 bn, with forecasts of adjusted operating profit between £2.7bn and £2.9bn for 2025.

In 2023, Erginbilgic was the third-highest paid FTSE 100 CEO, after AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot and Relx’s Erik Engstrom.

His base salary rose from £875,000 to £1.1m, with a 5% increase planned for 2025.

Erginbilgic joined Rolls-Royce in July 2022 and took on the CEO role in 2023, after 20 years at BP.

A Rolls-Royce spokesperson said: “We delivered record results in 2024 thanks to our ongoing transformation, achieving our mid-term targets two years earlier than planned and enabling us to upgrade our guidance for 2028. It is in the interests of all stakeholders that such strong performance and progress is rewarded. UK companies must be able to attract excellent talent and reward them when they deliver.”