Advertising guru Sir Martin Sorrell has been forced to defend his large pay package, saying he is worth every penny.
The founder of advertising giant WPP is facing a backlash from shareholders over his probable total remuneration of more than £70m this year, which is thought to be the second-largest ever earned by the chief executive of a large company in the UK.
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Speaking at an advertising conference in London yesterday, Sorrell said he had spent decades of his life turning WPP plc from a maker of wire baskets worth £1m when he bought it in 1985 to a £21bn global marketing firm.
"WPP capitalised at £1m [at its start in1985]. Today it is capitalised at £21bn. I'm not a Johnny-come-lately who picked a company up and turned it round [for a big pay day]," he said, reports The Guardian.
"If it was one five-year plan and we buggered off, fine [to criticise my pay]. Over those 31 years … I have taken a significant degree of risk. [WPP] is where my wealth is. It is long effort over a long period of time."
He added: "Everything we do gets approved by shareholders, one way or the other. In the last five years, the share price has grown from 665p to 1645p. If there is a problem, it is that the market capitalisation has grown from £8bn to £20bn.
"If there is a problem, it is that we have been successful. It's pay. I don't like the word 'pay'. It is reward for performance with risk attached."
The businessman faced a similar revolt in 2014, when 30 per cent of shareholders refused to endorse a £30m windfall that made him the best-paid executive in the FTSE 100.
This year's pay-out will be the second-largest ever given to a FTSE 100 executive, with Sorrell only out-earned by Bart Becht, who took £92m in shares and cash for helming Reckitt Benckiser in 2009.
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