Marc Bolland's £3.9m 'golden hello' to M&S (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Marc Bolland's £3.9m 'golden hello' to M&S

8:38am Wednesday 3rd February 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Former Morrisons boss Marc Bolland will take over as chief executive of Marks & Spencer on May 1 with a basic salary of £975,000 and a “golden hello” worth £3.9m in shares.

Mr Bolland, 50, who joined the Bradford-based supermarket from brewer Heineken in 2006, will also be paid £1.6m in cash and £1m-worth of shares to compensate for loss of bonus and shares that he would have received from Morrisons in 2010, along with £3.9m-worth of shares to compensate for shares that would have vested in 2011 and 2012.

At Morrisons, Mr Bolland earned a salary of £850,000 and total pay in 2009 of £1.7m. He has been released from his contract with Morrisons six months early.

His M&S salary is just short of current boss Sir Stuart Rose’s £1.13m basic pay, but M&S said it would pay cash and shares awards worth up to a potential £6.3m – including an “exceptional” long-term incentive award worth 400 per cent of salary in his first year.

Mr Bolland will also pick up cash and shares payments worth £7.5m in lieu of payments he would have received at Morrisons.

Mr Bolland has been on gardening leave from Morrisons since early December and negotiating an early departure.

The 50-year-old Dutchman is credited with transforming the chain into the fastest-growing of the big four grocers. Morrisons, which has about 400 stores and 124,000 staff, has outperformed the supermarket sector in recent months, notching up a 6.5 per cent leap in Christmas sales.

Dalton Philips, 41, was last week revealed as the new Morrisons boss.