Last Leap Payment Gives Sorrell £41.6m

Sir Martin Sorrell has cemented his place as comfortably the highest paid exec in the UK's FTSE 100 companies, securing just under £41.6m in this year's pay award under the now-expiring performance-related 'Leap' scheme. Then again, what's a pound worth nowadays?

The announcement comes as other controversial pay deals hit the press, although Sorrell's expected grand total of approaching £50m once salary and other amounts are added in dwarfs the EUR 8.6m awarded to Shell boss Ben van Beurden in 2016 or the £2 million total going to Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East as he attempts to right the legendary brand following recent high-profile bribery and corruption fines.

WPP's Leap scheme will now be replaced with a deal expected by investors to pay out 'less than £20m' next year. This year's figure is already some way down on the peak of £62.8m the scheme gave Sorrell last year, but brings his total for the last five years to around £210m. He has stoutly defended the sums: last year for example he stated 'If there is something wrong with building a company from two people to 194,000 people where 600,000 people depend on WPP for their livelihoods, then mea culpa'.


Separately Sir Martin, 72, has this week criticised tech giants including Google and Facebook who he says are not doing enough to tackle ad fraud and measurement errors, according to www.mediapost.com . Sorrell, whose firm has complex relationships with the two Silicon Valley juggernauts as client, supplier and partner, said they should step up and 'take responsibility'.


Sorrell's daughter Bianca Eva Sarah Falcone Sorrell - his first child with new wife Cristiana - was born on Tuesday November 8th last year. Having announced that she was on the way four months earlier we're sorry not to have reported the birth at the time - must have been something else major happening that day to distract us (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016 ).