Former Landsec chief executive Rob Noel is leaving the landlord with a 3.4% decrease to his annual pay package.
Noel, whose employment formally ends on 10 July this year, has seen his total pay fall to £1.57m in the year ending March, down from £1.62m in the previous year.
Although Noel’s base salary had risen to £812,000, up from £797,000 in 2019, his annual bonus award of £533,000 this year will be wholly deferred into shares vesting in 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last year Noel was awarded a £400,000 cash bonus, with a further £206,000 deferred into shares. After his departure, Noel will retain a substantial shareholding for two years, from 1 April 2020.
It is estimated that the total value of his salary, benefits and pension allowance for the period from 1 April to 10 July 2020 will be £292,227, subject to necessary deductions.
Total shareholder return at Landsec amounted to -35.4%, compared with 2.9% in 2019. Its -24.7% TSR for the three-year period from April 2017 did not outperform its FTSE 350 real estate peers, which collectively posted -0.4%.
Ungeared total property return was -4.5%, down on 0.4% in the previous year. This was below the estimated MSCI benchmark of -1%.
What Landsec’s new boss will earn
Noel’s successor Mark Allan, whose job as chief executive took effect on 14 April, will earn a base salary of £800,000 on top of a one-time relocation allowance of £200,000, repayable on a pro-rata basis in the event of termination within two years.
Allan will also take home a pension allowance of 10.5% of salary, and will be able to earn a maximum annual bonus of 150% of salary and awards of 300% of salary under the company’s long-term incentive plan.
Gender pay gap worsens
Elsewhere, Landsec has reported a 34.3% median gender pay gap and a 37.7% mean gap among its employees. The mean gap has widened on the previous year, when it stood at 36.8%.
“Although the gender split of our business is almost even – 48% male, 52% female – our gender pay gap worsened slightly during the year,” Landsec admitted in its annual report.
Landsec said significantly more women (66%) than men (34%) were in support and professional roles, compared with a higher number of men (73%) than women (27%) in leadership and senior leadership roles.
“We have put measures in place to support women in their career progression but we recognise that we need to do more,” the company stated.
Its measures to remedy this have included reviewing and improving its family-friendly policies; a female coaching programme; and introducing “ways to remove bias when making decisions on hiring people”.
The landlord reported that representation of employees from black, Asian and minority ethic backgrounds has improved, with 17% of employees disclosing BAME ethnicity backgrounds.
Landsec said that while this compared favourably to the 14% benchmark in the UK (set according to 2011 UK census data), it reduces to 11% for executive committee, senior leader and leader levels.
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