Bosses’ pay at Abbey up 3%

Executive pay levels at Co Meath-based house building group, Abbey increased by over 3% last year.

The Clonee-headquartered firm paid its four executive directors a total of €1.34m in its latest financial year — covering the 12 months to the end of April — up from €1.299m the previous year, according to its newly-published annual report.

The rise came on the back of Abbey’s Irish operations turning a profit for the first time in four years. In July, Abbey — which operates here, in Britain and in the Czech Republic — reported group pre-tax profits of €24.1m for the year; up by a whopping 113% on the previous 12 months.

Operating profits, for the year jumped from €8.3m to €20.4m and group revenues rose from €98.5m to €114.2m.

Earnings per share jumped 143% to 87.04c and, following a tax charge of €5.3m, the group made a total annual profit of €18.7m. The latest annual report shows that Abbey’s executive chairman, Charles Gallagher was paid total remuneration of €741,000.

The marginal bump in overall executive pay came from increases to the overall packages for Lorenzo Fraquelli (€271,000 up to €309,000), who is managing director of Abbey Developments, and Robert Kennedy (€232,000 to €237,000) who up until recently headed up M&J Engineers, Abbey’s UK-based plant hire business.

Combined pay among Abbey’s non-executive directors — made up of David Gallagher, J Roger Humber and Michael McNulty — amounted to €144,000; down from €147,000 a year earlier.

Speaking on the back of the July results, Charles Gallagher said the company was confident of a sustained recovery in the Irish residential market adding that the market should be able to reach a sustainable level of 15,000-20,000 new builds a year within five years up from around 8,000.