Vodafone boss nets €7.4m

The boss of mobile phone group Vodafone received pay and bonuses worth up to £5m (€7.4m) in the last financial year, figures showed today.

Vodafone’s annual report showed that Arun Sarin was awarded pay, bonuses and benefits totalling £2.5m (€3.7m).

He was also conditionally awarded shares with a current value of £2.4m (€3.6m) under a long-term incentive scheme.

Mr Sarin, who joined Vodafone in July 2003, will only be able to claim this extra bonus if the firm meets certain performance targets over the next three years.

Vodafone would have to feature in the top 20% of a league of the world’s top telecoms companies in order for him to receive the maximum amount. These performance targets are based on total returns to shareholders.

The package comes after a year in which the company reported a 3% hike in annual pre-tax profits to £10.3bn (€15.3bn), meeting all of its stated targets despite growing competition.

The £2.5m (€3.7m) package included a basic salary of £1.2m (€1.8m), a short-term bonus of just over £1.1m (€1.6m) and benefits of £183,000 (€272,500).

This represented a fall from last year’s £3.2m (€4.8m) figure, which included relocation costs for Mr Sarin’s move from the United States to the UK.

A spokesman for the firm said the long-term bonus was based on “very stringent” targets that would also lead to significant gains for shareholders.

Mr Sarin was also granted the option to buy some seven million shares in two years’ time at a price not yet known. This is dependent on the company achieving earnings per share (EPS) growth of between 8% and 18%. Vodafone achieved EPS growth of 14% last year.