DealBook: Board Pay Rises 49% at British Companies

LONDON — Executives at Britain’s biggest companies received an average pay increase of 49 percent this year, with compensation rising faster than companies’ shares.

The annual average pay of executives, including chief executives and finance chiefs, at Britain’s 100 largest publicly listed companies rose to £2.7 million, or $4.3 million, according to research by Incomes Data Services published Friday. Chief executives received an average 43.5 percent pay increase, to £3.9 million, the report said. The FTSE 100 share index rose 15.8 percent in the period from February last year to April 2011.

“Britain’s economy may be struggling to return to pre-recession levels of output, but the same cannot be said of FTSE 100 directors’ remuneration,” Steve Tatton, editor of the report, said in a statement. The pay includes salary, benefits, bonuses and long-term incentive plans.

Deborah Hargreaves, chairwoman of the High Pay Commission, an independent group that examines private sector pay, told BBC radio that it was “very hard to justify these sorts of pay increases” and that it was in the interest of the executives to keep the market rate for their positions high.

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