Vodafone chief Nick Read takes home £3.7m in pay

Vodafone chief executive Nick Read has taken home a pay package worth £3.7m as the telecoms firm held its dividend payout to shareholders.

The telecoms boss, who was promoted to chief executive in 2018, was paid a £1.1m salary as well as a bonus and share awards in the year ended March 2020, according to Vodafone’s annual report which was released on Monday.

Senior executives at Vodafone, including Mr Read and chief financial officer Margherita Della Valle, recently offered to give up 25pc of their salaries over the next three months to charitable causes in response to coronavirus.

Last month, Vodafone held its dividend payout at 9 cents (8p) per share for shareholders.

The company’s Remuneration Committee also announced a pay freeze for executive directors.

Val Gooding, former Bupa chief executive and chair of Vodafone’s remuneration committee, said: “With regard to this year’s salary review, whilst our wider all-employee pay review has also continued as normal, with performance-related remuneration scheduled to be delivered as planned, no salary increases for either the executive directors or senior management teams will be awarded this year.”

In July last year, Mr Read and Ms Della Valle “voluntarily requested” a 20pc cut to a long-term share award, known as the Global Long Term Incentive, which is comes at the end of the 2022 financial year.

The decision was taken after Vodafone axed its dividend, ending a near three decade run of annual increases. Mr Read’s pay was up from £3m for the year ending in March 2019, although his pay that year included his salary from his previous role as chief financial officer of the company.

Last year, influential shareholder advisors urged clients to reject Vodafone’s remuneration report because of falls in the company’s share price.

The telecoms firm’s share price fell to a low of 98p in March as markets crashed amid coronavirus panic. It has since recovered and is down around 9pc this year.