Cork-born Tesco boss Ken Murphy received a £4.74million salary package through February, the grocer revealed in its annual report published on Friday.
Urphy, who was appointed CEO of the supermarket giant in October 2020, was paid a base salary of £1.54million.
He also received £3.2m (€3.76m) in performance-related pay, or bonuses, over the course of the year following Tesco’s strong recovery from the pandemic. The grocer posted a profit of £2 billion (€2.35 billion) for the year to February, a sharp rise from £636 million (€746 million) a year earlier.
Murphy was also paid £992,000 (€1.2m) for the first five months he spent at the top job, while predecessor Dave Lewis was paid a total of £6.3m (€7.3m) in the grocer’s 2020 financial year received.
Before joining Tesco, Murphy was Chief Commercial Officer and President of Global Brands at Walgreens Boots Alliance.
In the report, Tesco said it had agreed a 2.25 per cent pay rise for Murphy for the current financial year, saying that this level is “below the 5.8 per cent increase that hourly paid colleagues in stores and customers Fulfillment Centers”.
The report also showed that Murphy’s super pay was 224 times the total wages and benefits of the average Tesco team member.
The news also emerges as food prices rise as the cost-of-living crisis deepens. According to Kantar, monthly food inflation in the UK hit 5.9 percent in April, the highest since 2011.
In its annual results released last month, Tesco said rising inflation was among the main factors likely to affect the supermarket’s profits in the coming months. It also added that the investments required to maintain low prices can also impact financial performance.
Earlier this week, Tesco chairman John Allan, who received £695,000 in compensation last year, said Britain was “confronted with true food poverty for the first time in a generation”.
Source: independent