Sorrell Nets 70% Pay Rise to £29.8m

WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell saw his annual pay package rise by nearly two-thirds to £29.8m in 2013, from £17.5m the previous year, boosted by a plan linked to the company's share price and performance.

In 2012, a group of more than half of WPP's shareholders voted against Sorrell's pay for 2011, and last year the group lowered his basic salary by £150k to £1.15m. However, nearly £23m of the 2013 package has come from the firm's long-term incentive plan (double the £11.4m he received a year earlier), and he also received a £4.1m short term incentive, and a pension contribution of £460k.

One WPP shareholder told The Times: 'We've had a problem with Sorrell's pay for years, and have consistently voted against the remuneration report. We still think he is grossly overpaid; it is completely off the scale.' Last week, UK Business Secretary Vince Cable urged companies to curb excessive remuneration packages, or face new legislation to limit pay.

Sorrell, who built the company from a start of two employees to the 100,000 plus it employs today, wrote in an item in the FT in 2012 that he found 'the controversy over my compensation deeply disturbing', and said compensation decisions were 'competitively fair against our big US and French competitors, which we consistently outperform'.

Web site: www.wpp.com .