Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre's pay rises to £1.85m
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/07/daily-mail-editor-paul-dacre-pay Version 0 of 1. Paul Dacre continues to be the best-paid UK newspaper editor, taking home more than £1.8m last year, according to Daily Mail & General Trust's latest annual report. Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail and editor-in-chief of publisher Associated Newspapers, also enjoyed a pay rise of 5% for the financial year to the end of September 2012, during which he and DMGT's other five top-earning executives took home £11m. The 65-year-old, who agreed a new contract with a one-year notice period in September, received total remuneration of £1.85m in the last financial year. His base salary was £1.31m topped up with a £500,000 "supplement", agreed in 2011, for each full year Dacre works. In return he no longer participates in any DMGT bonus or long-term incentive scheme. In late September the Mail published a controversial comment piece describing Ed Miliband's late father Ralph as a "man who hated Britain", which Dacre was forced to defend after the Labour leader demanded an apology – which the newspaper refused to grant. "The company considered that offering Mr Dacre a bonus scheme linked to financial targets would be inconsistent with the objective of maintaining editorial independence," DMGT said in its annual report published on Tuesday. He does, however, have a gold-plated pension pot that is worth £652,000 annually. DMGT said that Dacre began to take his pension benefits in November 2008. Last month Dacre sold his last remaining shareholding in DMGT for almost £350,000. The remuneration of an average DMGT employee – there were 10,205 in 2013 – was £53,268. This is up 8.8% year-on-year due to "corporate restructuring", mainly the disposal of regional newspaper operation Northcliffe Media to David Montgomery's Local World, which contributed to DMGT reducing staff numbers by 1,925. Viscount Rothermere, DMGT's chairman and largest shareholder, received a total remuneration package of £2.3m, a 15% year-on-year rise. Rothermere was paid a base salary of £774,000, and received a cash bonus of £1.2m, 156% of his salary. He also received £286,000 in pension benefits. In 2012 Rothermere received almost £2m in total remuneration. DMGT's top six executives took home a total of £10.9m last year, as the company boosted adjusted pre-tax profits by 10% to £282m last year. Martin Morgan, the chief executive of DMGT, received £2.9m in total remuneration, a 16% year-on-year increase. Morgan was paid a base salary of £929,000 and received a cash and shares bonus of £815,000, worth 88% of his salary. He also received £344,000 in pension benefits and a £784,000 payout of from awards vesting as part of DMGT's long term investment programme. Morgan was also awarded 176,243 shares as part of the LTIP programme. The shares, which vest in 2017, were awarded at £5.27 each and are worth £928,000. Kevin Beatty, the chief executive of DMG Media, received £2.2m in total remuneration. He received a 360,000 bonus, 52% of his £686,000 salary, as well as £892,000 for shares that vested as part of DMGT's LTIP scheme. Beatty also received 254,000 in pension benefits. He was awarded 130,246 shares as part of the LTIP scheme, worth £686,000, which vest in 2017. Finance director Stephen Daintith received £1.4m in total, including a £543,000 bonus, 82% of his base salary of £659,000. Daintith was also awarded 125,085 shares as part of the LTIP scheme, worth £659,000, which vest in 2017. The total executive director remuneration bill was £11.4m, well down on the £16.4m in 2012. The total executive director remuneration bill dropped significantly in 2013 due to the passing of Padraic Fallon, the chairman of DMGT-owned Euromoney Institutional Investor, who died of cancer in October 2012. He was paid almost £6m in 2012, but only £257,000 for the small part of DMGT's 2013 financial year before his death. <em>• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media@theguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".</em> <em>• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on </em><em>Twitter</em><em> and </em><em>Facebook</em><em>.</em> Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |